86

 

            I dreamed.  I dreamed I was lying on my back, floating on a raft, in the middle of a vast, black ocean.  I know it’s over, and still I cling, I don’t know where else I can go…I could hear the fat man, somewhere, mumbling and muttering, jangling his cashing up bags.  But I couldn’t see him…only darkness.  Darkness, and The Smiths singing I Know It’s Over.  I was trying to get to sleep, but it felt like someone was trying to cut off my hands.  I brought them up to my face and peered through them, looking for stars in the sky, but there was nothing.  Just the black.  The ocean rocked beneath me, shushing and whispering, and the sky bore heavily down upon me.  There was pain.  Biting into my hands, my face, my head.  I tried to call out, to call to Terry, if he was there, but I couldn’t hear him now, he had faded away, and there was nothing, just darkness and an endless ocean and I was all alone.  I know it’s over, and it never really began…but in my heart it was so real…There was nothing.  Just the lapping waves, and the eerie dark, and The Smiths.  I wondered if I was dead.

 

            I woke up to the sound of my own coughing.  My throat was itchy and dry, coated with dust and stuffed tight with hot air. There was a massive pain in my head, right at the front, and I screwed my eyes up against it, battling with the weight of it, wondering what it was.  It throbbed relentlessly around my temples, and my forehead, and there was another pain, a bitter stinging around my mouth and nose.  I swallowed, and tasted blood, tangy and metallic.  I remembered, and the horror flooded me.  I blinked faster and faster, trying to clear a space in the darkness that surrounded me.  My eyes searched through it desperately, trying to work out where I was.  Was I dead?  If I were dead, how would I know?  It struck me then, that maybe this was what death felt like.  Just darkness, and pain, and confusion, forever.  I fought against the panic that was threatening to strangle me.  I realised that I was in a small, tight space.  My knees were right up next to my chin.  When I moved my head back, I found a soft, yet unyielding surface right behind it.  My face felt wet, but when I tried to wipe at it with my hands, I discovered they were tied together.  I lifted them up slowly, gasping in pure terror, my mouth falling open, my heart thundering away under my t-shirt.  I started to breathe faster and faster as panic set in.  I looked up again.  My eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to make out a window, up and to the right of me.  A car window.

            Fuck.  I was in the car.  Howard’s car.  I looked to the left, saw the other window. Straight ahead, the passenger seat.  I was squashed down in the foot well.  I didn’t understand.  I stared hard at the luxurious leather interior, at the green lighter laying on the drivers seat, and his pack of cigarettes resting in the space behind the gear stick.  The engine was off, and the car was cold.  Howard’s fucking car.  It was dark outside.  How long had I been out?  What had happened?  I clawed my way back through distorted memories to try to work it out.  I could remember the phone ringing, and Michael leaving, and Kurt scraping at the door to get out.  I stared around, gulping and swallowing air, following the light that reflected from the leather seats.  The light was coming from outside.  It took me a few more moments to work out that the light was coming from the moon, and when I stared harder at the passenger window, I could make him out, Howard.  He was stood there, leaning against the door.  I could even make out the grey swirls of smoke as they circled and rose into the air before him.  I tried to lean forward, straining my ears to try to pick up any sounds that might tell me where the hell we were.  I wondered if I could hear water running, or falling, but I wasn’t sure.

            Hearing a clock begin to tick inside my head, I looked back down at my hands.  They were tied with some sort of wire.  I lifted my wrists to my eyes to get a better look.  I moved my palms against each other, back and forth, trying to loosen it, but it was wound too tight.  When I moved my hands, the wire bit deep into my skin and I guessed that was the idea.  I felt a huge sob lurching up from my chest and swallowed it back down.  This was deep shit.  This was worse than I had ever imagined.  This could not be real.  Maybe this wasn’t real?  Maybe I was still dreaming?  I listened to my breathing getting faster again.  Panic was knocking, knocking really fucking hard.  I stared back up at the window, at the outline of the man, still leaning and smoking casually against the car.  He was just a man, I told myself.  I would be able to get through to him.  He was just trying to scare me.  He would see sense and let me go, I knew he would.  I’d do anything.  I’d do whatever he wanted.  I jerked my head to the left, but I was unable to tell if the door was locked or not.  I couldn’t make out if the knob was up, or down.  I tried to shift, I tried to move around in the tiny space, but my body was taking up all of the room.  As I stared at the door I knew it was my only chance of escape.  If I could get out of the foot well, if I could get that door open, I could run, I could run and scream for someone to help me.

            Just then, Howard moved from the door beside me.  I saw him throw his cigarette butt down.  I waited, fear gnawing at my guts, and then I saw my only escape route destroyed in a second, as he yanked open the drivers door and slid smoothly into the car.  He slammed the door shut, and our eyes met in the darkness, and I saw him smile, and I wondered how fucked I was.  The moonlight snagged on his teeth, lighting them up in their small, neat rows.  He rested one broad arm across the steering wheel, and shifted his weight to face me.  I recognised the gloating, euphoric glint in his eyes, the look that reminded me of a junkie getting his fix.  “What the fuck are you doing?” I asked him, my voice a trembling disbelieving croak, as terrified tears rolled down my cheeks. 

            “Thought you’d fancy a drive,” came the smooth, controlled reply.  He grinned at me as if we were sharing an inside joke.  I wanted to rip his face off.  I swallowed.

            “Where?”

            “At the beach,” he said with a small and casual shrug.  “Well the cliff top.  You know the bit that’s all roped off?  They had a bit of erosion up here last week apparently.  Big chunk of it fell off.  Yeah.  Fell right in.  Splash.”  His grin was bright and gleaming, his small eyes laughing in his calm face.  “Pretty deserted up here this time of night,” he added, with a slight nod.  “No one about for miles, and miles.”

            “Why?” My voice had crept higher, and quivered in terror.  “Why?  What are you doing?  What the fuck are you doing?”

            He shifted a bit closer, leaning towards me as if to share a great secret with me.  He pressed his finger against his thin lips.  “Shh,” he smiled. “Keep it down little man.  No need to shout.  It’s just you and me.”

            “You’re crazy,” I whispered, shaking so bad now I could barely think straight. I looked back at my hands and started trying to twist them free again.  I could feel the wire eating into my skin, opening it up, and a warm sticky wetness spreading, but I did not care.  “You’re completely insane,” I said, not looking at him.  “You can’t do this, you have to let me go!”

            “You’re gonna’ cut your own hands off if you keep doing that.”

            “Let me fucking go!” I looked up and screamed at him then.  There was an explosion inside of me.  I felt it, and it was telling me to get up, to get out, to get far away, to not let this happen, to fight back.  I struggled to get up, launching my body forwards and trying to use my elbows to hook into the seat for leverage.  Howard just sat and watched me, with this sleepy and slanty-eyed look of amusement on his face.  Finally, he reached for me, grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the foot well.

            “Been watching you for some time,” he announced brashly.  I landed sideways on the seat, and immediately tried the door handle with my hands, but it was locked.  I brought my feet up instead and kicked the door, and then the window.  I drummed my feet against them, while terrified tears squeezed free of my eyes.  “Okay, that’s enough of that now, that’s enough of that,” he said, pulling me back with my t-shirt and holding me in place, with a hand to my chest.  I squirmed and strained under it.  I was in a state.  Panicked, and out of control.  I lurched against the hand, tried to knock it away, brought up my knees, tried to twist away from him.  “Calm down,” he told me, “that’s enough of that!  I’m talking and you should be fucking listening!”

            I stopped struggling.  I wasn’t going anywhere.  I stared at the windscreen, breathlessly, with the weight of his hand on my chest making my guts wring out, and forcing vomit up my windpipe.  “You’re fucking insane,” I panted. “You’ve lost it.  You can’t do this.  You can’t do this to me.”

            He pushed his hand into my chest. “You better pipe down,” he said indignantly. “You might have been gone for a while, but you should remember the rules.  Shut the fuck up when I’m talking, or I’ll break your fucking nose.”  He stared at me.  I stared at the windscreen.  I saw him nod.  “Okay.  I had to bide my time you see.  Could have rushed in and taught you a lesson at any fucking time.  But you had all your homo friends swarming round you like fucking flies on shit.  Had to be patient and wait for the right time.”

            “They’ll be worried about me by now,” I told him through my gritted teeth. “They’ll have called the cops.”

            “They’ll probably think you’re with your mum,” he said cooly, and our eyes met again.  He nodded at me.  “Oh yeah, I know you’ve been sneaking around to see her for a while now.  And I know what the bitch is planning too, thanks to you.  Been putting ideas in her head, haven’t you eh?  Been trying to fuck things up between me and her, yet again, haven’t you eh?”

            “Yeah, so what?” I shot back at him, pushing with my feet and shuffling my backside further back on the seat.  “She wants to leave you!  She hates you, you stupid bastard! And that’s nothing to do with me, it’s ‘cause of how you treat her! She contacted me, she begged me to come and see her, not the other way around!”

            “Oh is that so?”

            “Yes!” I screamed at him, shifting to face him, easing my back up against the car door.  He kept his hand on my chest.  I couldn’t get away from it.  “It’s your fault!  It’s over!”

            “Well,” he said, with a little tip of his head. “You are right about that, anyway. It’s over alright.  Come on then.”

            I shook my head at him, not understanding.  “What?”

            “Come on!  Look lively!” He sniggered, turned the key in the ignition and unlocked all the doors.  He reached over me and opened the door I was leant on.  He used the flat of his hand to shove it open, and I nearly went with it, but moved forward just in time.  “Come on, out you get!” he laughed into my face.  “Can you hear that?” he asked, cocking his head to one side.  I looked out of the door.  I could hear the stark and lonely sound of the waves crashing violently against the cliffs.  It was raining steadily.  I looked back at him.  His face had changed.  There was no humour now.  Only cold, dark malice.  “I knew you’d try to ruin things between me and her,” he growled, and shoved me out of the car.  I landed on my back, winded, but quick enough to roll over and get up onto my knees.  He appeared behind me, grunting, like a living nightmare, wrapping his bear like arms around my middle and tearing me to my feet.

            “What are you doing?” I screamed, thrashing wildly, kicking out with my legs, drumming my heels into his shins. 

            “Tried to ruin things from the start, didn’t you?” he was growling, as he heaved me away from the car, and towards the red and white tape I could see had been strung up along the footpath just ahead.  He half carried, half dragged me, and I did all I could, bucked and strained and kicked and screamed, but there was no way out, no release from the massive arms that held me.  “They ought to put a proper fence up, eh?” he hissed into my ear as he hauled me along. “Anyone could just drive up here and dump rubbish over the edge eh?  Thorn in my fucking side, that’s what you’ve been since day fucking one!”

            “What the fuck are you doing?  You can’t do this!” I tried to force my feet down into the ground, tried to plant them there and use the earth to hold me down, but he moved me on, dragging me closer and closer to the edge. 

            “Come on, come on, nearly there now, nearly there!” he was panting into my head. “Then it will all be over Danny!  You’ll see!”

            I didn’t want to see.  I twisted violently within his grasp.  I made it as hard as I could for him to move me, scuffing my feet into the sand, turning and jabbing my elbows back into his body, but it made no difference.  Finally I opened up my lungs and screamed; “Help! Someone help me!  Help me!” I could see the black waves down below, I could see them swelling and rising.

            “No one can hear you,” he told me. “We’re miles from anyone.  No one comes up here.  No one will hear you. I’d stop struggling if I were you, this is where the ground gave way, we might both go down together!”  He held me there.  We were at the edge.  His arms were tight around my chest, squeezing the air from me.  My feet dangled, just above the ground, my toes scraping uselessly at the wet sand.  I had no choice but to face the ocean.  I could see the white froth down below, gleaming in the moonlight as it thrashed and hurled itself at the rocks.  “Time to pluck that thorn out,” he whispered into my neck.  I heard him inhaling deeply, and I knew what he was doing, breathing in my terror, sucking it into his rancid lungs.  I tried to press my body back into his, tried to turn my head away from the blackness below.

            “Don’t do this, please don’t do this,”  I began to babble in a high pitched sobbing voice.  I couldn’t understand, couldn’t believe it had come to this…I stared at the sea and suddenly felt myself going, and a scream echoed from me, he had let me go, let me go, and  was falling forward, the big arms were gone, and he was laughing, and laughing and laughing behind me.  My t-shirt snagged up under my arm pits.  I held.  He knotted his hand in the material at the small of my back and that was all there was.  That was all there was between me and falling.  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, please, please, oh my god please don’t let go, please, please, please, whatta’ya doin’ whatta’ ya’ doin…”

            “Do you want to die today Danny?”

            “No!  No!  Please, please don’t let go, don’t let go…”

            “It’s about time you said please….”

            “Please!” I screamed into the darkness. “Please Lee!  Oh my god!” I could not tear my eyes away from the angry black waves that rolled and crashed below us.  The rain was falling heavier, plastering my hair to my skull, running in cold rivers down my back. My feet scraped pathetically against the fragile ground.  My t-shirt was pulled tight around my neck. I could feel his fist there, warm and solid in my lower back, holding me.  Oh god, oh god don’t let me go, don’t do it, don’t really do it…If my t-shirt tore, or if he let it go, there would be no stopping me.  There would just be falling, and the cold whoosh of air and rain as I plummeted into the sea.  “Please,” I said it again, my teeth chattering together violently. “I’m begging you, I’m begging you please, please…”  There was a horrible, and terrible pause, while I was forced to wait, and he didn’t say anything, he just breathed heavily behind me, as if he was thinking it over.  “Please,” I whispered again, shaking so hard I could barely see straight.  “Please Lee…”

            “You better let me hear some more of that,” he grunted finally, and stepped back, yanking me with him.  I closed my eyes, relief wracking my body with an explosion of noisy sobs, as I felt myself tugged down to the ground.  It shook through me, the disbelief, the horror, the fear..I felt like my mind was going to cave in, give up…I was on my stomach, my hands trapped beneath me, my face still just inches from the terrible edge, so I kept my eyes closed, not wanting to see the awful, hungry blackness any more.  He was on top of me, his bulk pressing me into the sand.  The wet and the cold was soaking quickly through my clothes.  All I could do was sob, and moan, and tremble, my eyes squeezed shut, my face against the sand, just desperate to block out the sound of the angry waves, just desperate to block everything out.  Howard took me by the hair and pulled my head up.  “Look at that!” he snarled. “Look at that there! You don’t want to go down there, do you?  Do you?”

            “No,” I shook my head in his grasp.  “No, no, no, please no…”

            “No one would ever find you down there, would they?  You’d be lost forever down there, wouldn’t you?  You don’t want to be lost forever down there, do you eh?”

            I shook my head again. “No, please, don’t…”

            “Well you have to be a good boy, don’t you then?” He gripped my hair tighter, pulling my head up so hard and fast I thought my neck would snap.  “For once in your miserable little shit stained life, you have to be a good boy, don’t you?”

            I sniffed up my tears and snot.  “I will, I will, I will…”

            “You’ve never been very good at it, have you?” he continued to rage on.  “Never been any good at doing what you’re told, have you, you little bastard?”

            “Sorry…I’m sorry…”

            “You better be fucking sorry,” he pulled my head back even further, until all I could see then was the dense black sky.  I closed my eyes before they filled with rain.  “You better be sorry, and you better start being a good boy, because this is your last fucking chance, or you’re going down there, do you understand?”

            “Yes!”

            “You be a good boy or that’s where I’ll put you!  You say sorry for trying to wreck things!  For trying to get her away from me!”

            “Sorry!” I screamed and sobbed.  “I’m sorry!”

            He pushed his lips against my ear.  “She wants to leave me because of you, she’s lying and cheating behind my back, because of you!  She’ll stop all that if you be a good boy!  If you do what I say!  If you do as you’re told and be a good boy, she’ll be alright again, won’t she? We’ll be a family, won’t we?  Are you gonna’ do as I tell you and be a good boy?”

            I swallowed.  I opened my eyes and blinked in the rain, and in my minds eyes I saw the little bed-sit, with the bean bags, and the walls covered in posters, and the sagging bed, and the little tatty sofa that Anthony curled up on, and I nodded for him, I nodded.  I felt my ribs groaning under the weight of him and I just wanted it to be over, whatever it was. “Will you let me go?”

            “I haven’t decided yet.  I might.  If you’re lucky.  If you promise to be a good boy, and if I believe you.”

            “I will, I promise, I will.”

            “Fucking say it!”

            “I’ll be good!  I’ll do whatever you fucking want!”

            “Yeah, that’s right, you will, you’ll be good and you’ll take the fucking job I offered.  You’ll come and work for me and make amends.  Last chance Danny!”

            “I will, I will, okay…”

            He finally let go of my hair.  He sniggered into my ear. “Jack thought you were a good boy didn’t he?  He really did.”  I felt the cold sand against my cheek again, and closed my eyes against it all.  If he didn’t get off me soon, I would be dead anyway, and nothing would matter anymore.  “He really liked you a lot,” he went on, slurring his words into my brain.  “If you’re not careful, maybe I’ll give him a call and get him to pay you a visit eh?  You have no idea how much he’d like to get his hands on you.” He chuckled, and shifted his body against mine, as if to drum in the humiliation in, and he was laughing so softly, and I knew he would be licking his lips too, relishing every moment of the power he owned.  “I told you, didn’t I?  I told you not to leave.  I told you I would find you, if you did.  You should have listened to me, shouldn’t you?  You shouldn’t have run off with your scuzzy friends.  When you’re part of a family, you don’t do that sort of thing.  You stick together and you’re loyal.  You were a bad boy, doing that, weren’t you?  Naughty, naughty boy running off like that, weren’t you eh?”

            “Yes,” I replied quietly.  “I was.”

            He laughed out loud, and finally eased himself off of me, and stood up.  I could breathe again, but I was not entirely sure that I wanted to, now that I could.  I lay there, not moving, just breathing slowly in and out and questioning whether it was even worth it.  He grabbed the back of my t-shirt and hauled me to my feet.  I was soaked through.  I just hung there, head down and eyes glazed and mind fogged with terror, and then he marched me back to the car with his hand around my neck.  I had a feeling I knew what was coming, and I was right.  I didn’t put up a fight, and I didn’t say a word.  He opened the passenger door, pushed me down onto the seat and lifted my t-shirt up to my neck.  “Need to get you back in line,” he was grunting, and unbuckling his belt.  I turned my face to the side, my eyes dull and beyond caring.  He chortled to himself up above.  “I’m gonna’ fucking enjoy this,” he decided to tell me before the first strike came.

            I closed my eyes, I braced myself for it, I arched my back and hissed the pain through my teeth each time I heard the belt cutting through the air behind me.  Wow, I thought numbly, you fucking motherfucker, pulling out all the stops, all this, wow, what a show.  I tried not to cry, but in the end it was too much to keep down, and the sound of my tears seemed to slow him down.  I counted ten, and then he stopped, turned me over and unwound the wire from my wrists.  I just shook and tried to contain it all, I kept my eyes closed, and when he slammed the car door on me, I curled into the door, and brought my knees up to my chin, and wrapped my arms around myself, and refused to look.  I didn’t want to look, I didn’t want to see, and I thought maybe if I stayed in a calm darkness, then none of this would be real, maybe it was all just a nasty fucking dream. 

            The car rocked when he climbed in the other side.  I wondered what his agenda was.  I wondered what was next.  I wondered if it was over, or if it had just begun.  I screwed my face up, burying myself in my arms, and the pain was getting worse, growing and swelling with every passing second, layers of hot, electric pain smothering my existence.  He turned the engine on and pulled across his seat belt.  “Let’s go,” he said.  I kept myself turned to the window, my knees up, and my head down.  I recognised his voice.  Calm now.  All the anger had gone.  He was like a junkie getting his fix, and now he was as high as a fucking kite on it all, until it started to run out again.  We drove along in silence. 

85

 

June 1996

            It was only a matter of time.  I told Anthony that after he’d spoken to Howard out on the street that day.  He tried to play it down, of course.  He alternated between trying to play the ex-con tough guy and threatening to beat the shit out of the guy, and the bad boy gone good persona, and suggesting we call the police.  I just sat and took it all in, and I realised that in truth, it was what I had expected all along.  I wasn’t really surprised, or shocked.  I had escaped.  There had been a time, when things were good.  But now, the hunt was on.  It seemed and felt inevitable.  I thought that I had two options.  Run, or fight back.  I could leave, I could leave alone, and I could run, and keep running.  I would lose them.  I would lose them all, because I would never be able to tell them where I had gone.  The idea, and the thought of being that alone in the world, made me want to fall to my knees and weep in protest.  I would hear Michael and Anthony discussing things, in sombre, fear filled tones.  Every now and then one of them would raise their voice in exasperation, or anger.  I felt myself slipping away from them.  I felt the distance imposing itself from within.  I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d tried.  It was my problem, not theirs.  Something would happen.  One way or the other.  I could run, or I could figure out a way to fight back. 

            The job offer was a joke.  A way to taunt, and torture me.  He was playing cat and mouse.  I walked through the days that followed with the undeniable sense that everything was falling apart around me.  I walked through my life like a shadow.  I felt the distance stretch out between me, and my friends.  I felt it, like the unstable ground beneath my feet, stretched and flimsy, weakening as my mind drifted.  I went about my business like a stiff little ghost.  Around every corner, I fully expected to see the monsters face, gaping and snarling, preparing to eat me up.  When I was alone, my mind echoed with the impossible loudness and clarity of the words I had spoken; I am going to fucking kill you…The words, they followed me to bed, and whispered softly into my ears.  I awoke in the morning, with the force of them pounding at my head.  When my friends spoke, I realised that I could barely hear them anymore, and that their words meant nothing.

            It was not their fault, but my heart was being wrung out by a pain they could never understand.  I looked into the mirror and did not recognise the haunted face that stared back at me.  I peered at my reflection, and spoke the words, I will fucking kill you…The words occupied my mind in between quivering like a victim.  When I thought about the words, when I tested them out on my tongue, one by one, it was like laying out a plan, a proposition, and I felt better, and the trembles eased.  I felt a hardening inside of me, and it gave me the strength to get up and go to work each day, always wondering if today would be the day.  I held the words inside my chest like a weapon, like a shield.  I aimed to build myself up, to stack up the hatred and the fury, brick by brick inside of myself.  I thought about protection, and I thought about attack.

            When Lucy came to see me, she wanted to hold my hand and locate my softness, my warmth, but I had nothing left for her.  Sometimes I looked into her face, and wanted to scream at her to get the hell away from me; I’ll hurt you, I’ll hurt you, one day I will really hurt you…She watched my rage erupt when I could not open a tin of beans, when the jagged rim bit into the skin of my thumb and sent blood drops scattering all across the kitchen floor.  I felt like the rage inside of me was a black and bottomless pit.  A torrent, a flood, with no end, no way to turn it off once it started.  I watched her back away when I lost control and I saw the look in her eyes and it was the same look that my mother always had.

            One day Anthony caught hold of my arm to make me listen.  “I’ve got an appointment with the bank manager,” he was trying to tell me. “So we can apply for a loan, then we can afford to buy a car, and find a place further from here.  Danny, you listening?”  I wasn’t listening.  I pulled free of him and went back to kicking in one of the kitchen cupboards.  It felt good, I reasoned.  Maybe I was starting to see things from his side, yeah.  Lashing out, striking something, feeling the wood give way and splinter under the force of my foot.  Anthony attempted once more to pull me away, to make me stop, to make me listen. “Danny, don’t do this!  We’re nearly there!  Just got to hold on a few more days! A week maybe, are you listening Danny? You’ve got to listen, you’ve got to let us in, if he does anything we’ll call the police!”

            I stopped the kicking. “They won’t care,” I hissed at him.  I stared at the damage, my shoulders moving up and down breathlessly.  I did not feel finished then, and wondered what else I could attack.  “You’ll see.”

            “What will I see?  What do you mean?  Come on mate, pull yourself together.  He’s messing with your head and you’re letting him!”

            “It doesn’t matter,” I told him, and I was right.  “Nothing does.”  I pushed past him and lay down on the bed with my arms folded behind my head.  My eyes moved up to find the yellowed ceiling.  I found a crack, and followed it.

 

            Saturday evening, and Anthony was at work.  Michael and I were self-medicating our headaches from the night before, with carefully rolled spliffs and endless rounds of tea and biscuits.  I ignored the phone ringing, shrill and endless, until Michael at last gave in, grunted and rolled from the bed to answer it.  I opened my eyes, and then closed them again.  The familiar weight of dread and muted rage was pressing down on me, as it had done all day.  Michael picked up the phone, rubbing at his red eyes under his hair, stretching out a yawn and mumbling his replies.  Finally he hung it up and swore.  “Been called into work,” he said to me, as I watched him.  “Bastards!” he expressed, and started to hunt for some clean clothes.  I did not answer him.  I had begun to view speaking as a mostly needless and pointless waste of energy.  I listened to Michael stumbling around the room.  “Why don’t they just hire more staff?” I felt the bed sag as he sat down on the edge to pull his legs through his jeans.  “It’s not like there’s a lack of people out there needing work!  And then I could have my fucking evening off, like I’d planned…”

            He got up again, sighing wearily.  I rolled over onto my side, away from him.  Kurt whimpered and curled into a tighter ball beside me.  “You gonna’ be alright?” he was asking me from the door.  “Anthony will be back in an hour or so.  He won’t be long.” I heard the rattle of keys as he grabbed his from the table next to the door.  “Danny?”

            “Mmm?”

            “I said, you gonna’ be okay? If I go?  I’d tell them to shove it, but Anthony reckons we really need the money, so…”

            “Yeah, fine,” I muttered irritably. “Just go.”

            “Alright, alright, sorry for breathing.  I’ll see you later okay?”

            When I did not answer, he groaned and stormed out of the bed-sit.  I opened my eyes and stared at nothing.  I could hear the TV chattering in the background.  The phone rang again, but I did not move.  I closed my eyes and tried to find sleep.  The smokes had removed me slightly from everything, and that was a good thing, I reasoned.  The rage was dulled for the time being, the fear and the panic held back.  I would have to control them all until Anthony returned.  I would have to keep my eyes closed tightly and tell myself that monsters did not exist.  I missed Lucy’s arms around me.  It was like a knife to my heart every time I even thought about her, but I had told her to stay away for now.  To be on the safe side, I had tried to tell her, but the grief and confusion in her eyes was hard to escape.

            I felt like I was living on a knife edge.  Inevitability washing over my existence in greedy, vicious waves.  Why the fuck was the phone still ringing?  I tried to sleep, but the phone would not stop ringing.  It was making me feel rattled, and caged in, shaky with frustration and creeping resentment.  I pulled my arms over my head and covered it.  I squeezed my eyes shut.  The phone stopped.  I breathed in slowly, deeply, and exhaled it back out again.  Sleep stole in upon me.

            I was torn back out from it just minutes later.  The fucking phone again, ringing and ringing and ringing.  I growled with impatience, sat up and lunged from the bed, and found the phone on the side table with everything else we needed in a hurry; ashtrays and lighters and keys and money.  I picked it up and looked at it, and half considered hurling it through the window.  Then I wondered if it might be Lucy.  “Hello?”

            “Danny!  It’s me, mum!” she sounded excited and breathless with fear and something else.  I leant against the wall, and my head was spinning.

            “Why’d you keep phoning?” I demanded.  “I’m trying to sleep.”

            “Because it’s important, that’s why, I need to tell you something!”

            “What?”

            “I finally did it, I finally did something right.”

            “What?”

            “I called the police honey.  Just now.  I called them.  I spoke to this really lovely female officer, and I said it’s not an emergency, but she is going to come and see me tomorrow, when he’s out.”

            I pushed my hair from my face.  “Really?”

            “Yes, really.  I wanted you to know.  I did it.  I phoned them.”  She seemed to catch her breath on the other side of the phone, and then went on.  “She talked me through everything.  I have to press charges against him, and then they can arrest him.  They can even make him stay away from me while I get myself sorted.  If he comes near me, he’ll get arrested.  Oh she was so nice and helpful Danny.”

            I breathed out through my nostrils.  My mouth was clamped shut.  My lips did not seem to be able to move, or open.  Conflicting emotions rose up within me.  Relief teased and taunted me, daring me to believe in it, while resentment and darkness swirled so thickly inside my head I found it impossible to congratulate her.  You don’t know him at all, I wanted to say to her.  Her naivety was astounding.  Her innocence.  Her hope.  You do not know him at all.  “Danny?  Are you there?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Well what do you think?”

            “Dunno.”

            “Are you okay?  Have you seen him?”

            “Not for a few days.”

            “Well you just hold on honey.  You just sit tight.  It will all be over tomorrow.  Everyone will know the truth about him, and he will never be able to hurt either one of us ever again.  Okay?”

            I thought about what she was saying for a moment, turning the words over inside of my head.  I wanted to believe her.  I wanted to grab the light that she had held out to me. “Okay,” I murmured.

            “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

            “Okay.”

            “I’ll call you tomorrow, after she’s been.  I’ll have more to tell you then.  I’ll let you know what happens, okay?”

            “Okay,” I hung up on her before she could say anything else.  I wanted my mind to be free for a while.  Free of wonder, and clutter, and fear, and hope.  I turned off the TV, put a record on and went back to the bed.  It was that old song, that song I had drifted towards at Billy’s, all that time ago.  I could see her in my head then.  June Madison, her long blonde hair hanging down over one shoulder, as she swayed and moved to the music coming from her little battered radio on the kitchen window sill.  My head sank into my pillow and I mouthed the gentle words as they came to me, as they filled my fading mind with sweetness and pain; When rain has hung the leaves with tears, I want you near to kill my fears, to help me leave all my blues behind….For standing in your heart, is where I want to be, and I long to be…ahh but I may as well try to catch the wind…I curled around Kurt, and I slept.

 

            The next time I awoke, it was because Kurt was whining.  I could hear his little claws scraping at the door to get out.  I rolled over in bed, groggy and thick with sleep, and clogged up dreams and stretching memories.  “You want a wee?” I asked him, rubbing at my face with one hand.  He turned in a circle, tail wagging and eyes bright.  He barked at the door and whined again.  “Okay, hang on, hang on.”  I lowered my feet to the floor, grabbed my pack of cigarettes and lighter and stuffed them into my pocket to smoke outside.  I opened the door and he scampered quickly through it on his squat little legs, and I smiled at the sight of his little white arse disappearing down the first flight of stairs. 

            I stepped through the door to go after him, and I was instantly startled by an enormous shadow coming from the right, smothering me in darkness.  I backed up, shaking my head no, my eyes widening, as he filled the doorway, as he blocked out the light, and the hope, and towered over me, with this strange and cautious expression on his face.  He held up giant hands as if to soothe me.  “It’s okay, don’t freak out,” he said to me, “I need to talk to you, it’s about your mum.”

            I glanced behind him.  I could see Kurt out on the landing, hovering there with his small head cocked to one side, and his ears aloft.  I felt suddenly a million miles away from the outside world, and as the distance between Howard and me was swallowed up in huge strides, I knew that even if I did manage to get past him, I would not make it very far.  I looked back at Howard and accepted this was it.  One way or another.  This was it then.  I shrugged my shoulders.  “What about her?” He looked pained, as if he might cry, and he wrung his big hands together.

            “She’s in the hospital,” he said. “She took an overdose last night.  I came back from work and found her.  Called the ambulance just in time.”

            “What?”

            “She’s okay,” he asserted quickly. “They’re taking good care of her.  But she wants to see you.  She asked me to come and get you, to go and see her there.”  He made a small hand gesture towards the open door.  I felt my skin crawl with knowing and I shook my head at him. 

            “Bullshit.  I just spoke to her a while ago.  You’re lying.  Get out.”

            A different face fell over the one he had presented to me.  His eyebrows rose slowly to meet his receding hairline.  A calm smile tugged up the corners of his lips.  “I’m giving you a chance to do this the easy way,” he said very softly.  I felt cold with terror, like I had been wrapped in ice.

            “My friends are back any minute.”

            “Oh really?” he looked amused and rocked back on his heels.  “Is that why I saw one get on the bus not so long ago?  And the other one is at work, because I checked, little man, I checked.”

            My jaw was shuddering.  My teeth clattered against one another.  I watched the smile slide across his face, and I watched the small, stone like eyes gleaming at me with the satisfaction of victory.  “I’ve been watching you,” he informed me.  “I told you that once before, do you remember?  Do you remember after the wedding when you tried to run away? I also told you that I’d be the one to decide when you could leave.  Didn’t I?  Do you remember that conversation shit stain?  Anyway, I’m here to do you a favour.  I’m your last chance mate.  Your last chance to be a good boy.  You get one last chance to get it right, to make amends and be part of a proper family.”

            I backed up further.  I reached out with one hand, made contact with the thin glass of the window, and felt nausea swimming to the surface.  “No chance,” I said, shaking my head, not taking my eyes from his face.  “I don’t want it.  I don’t want anything from you.”

            Kurt had edged back into the room.  He was at Howards feet, sniffing.   I saw him pull his head back in confusion, before thrusting it forward to sniff again.  Howard saw him, and made his move quickly, letting out a hungry growl as he swept down with one arm and snatched the little dog up by the scruff of his neck.  I stepped forward automatically, reaching for him.  “No!  What’re you doing?”

            Howard held him up and looked him over. “Ahh what a sweet little thing,” he said. “Sweet little rat!  Yeah, I’ve seen you two going about together, makes me fucking sick!” He used his other hand to grab one of Kurts wiggling back legs, then he let go of his neck and held him aloft by one leg.  The dog cried out in pain, and Howard jerked him behind, slamming him against the wall.  I ran forward.

            “You bastard!”

            He laughed, shoved me back with a hand to the chest and I landed on my backside.  Howard held the dog up again, examining him as he twisted and yelped in his grip.  I scrambled to my feet and rushed forward again, but he grabbed my t-shirt and held me back.  “Horrible little thing,” he mused.  “Look at it, nasty little rat!”

            “Put him down you fucking arsehole!”

            “I’ll break his fucking legs,” he retorted and swung Kurt against the wall again.  There was a horrible thump, and I felt desperate sobs rising in my chest.   I struggled against his hand.

            “Please!” I tried to reach for him, but Howard held him up higher and he was hanging limply now, breathing rapidly and looking dazed.  “Please stop it!  Stop it!  Don’t hurt him!”

            “Come here,” Howard pulled me forward by my clothes and wrapped a firm arm around my shoulders.  “I ought to snap all his legs off and flush him down the toilet,” he sniggered into my ear.  “That’s what I’ll do if you don’t behave yourself, right?”  With my eyes on the dog, I nodded quickly.  “Good.  Come here.”

            I saw him drop the dog.  I felt his hand snatching up my hair.  I caught a glimpse of Kurt staggering off to hide under the bed, and then I saw the same wall, flying towards my face. 

84

 

 

June 1996

            I don’t think they knew that I was watching, all the time, I was watching.  They may have been keeping an eye out for my silver Merc, but that wasn’t the only car I had.  They may have checking over their shoulders, staring into shadows, but the funny thing was they missed me; they never knew I was there.  I watched patiently from afar, and I found the patience soothing.  It was alright to wait, you see, it was alright to bide my time and choose my moments.  There was a delicious sense of regaining control, while they scrabbled about their untidy little lives, like rats abandoning a sinking ship.  Their faces, panicked, pale.  The girl did not go around anymore, maybe they had warned her not to.  It was just the three of them, day in, day out, scuttling about with their eyes wide open, yet never seeing me.

            I knew their routines.  I knew their work hours, and their shifts.  I knew that Anthony was scanning the newspaper for flats, for other places to live.  I knew this because I often drank a pint in The Ship when he was not there.  I found his rolled up newspaper on the bar, and I was able to peruse his thought processes.  He had a few lines of enquiry open, it seemed, a few options he was considering to keep them safe.  Moving home, was one.  Numerous flats across the area were circled or crossed out.  Question marks had been drawn in next to a couple of old bangers in the car section at the back.  I could see how his mind was working.  Move further away, but buy a car so that they could still get to their jobs.  Why, they had a dilemma on their hands, didn’t they?  Move away, run away and keep running, and lose their jobs, their income.  Stay close, and run the risk of bumping into the bogey man on every dark street corner.  Oh how I chuckled over my pint, and his newspaper.

            Sometimes I parked the car on the road outside their building, and just waited.  I wanted to talk to them.  To any of them.  I wasn’t sure exactly what I would say, but just the thought of engaging one of them in a meaningful conversation was a thrill stirring to life in my chest.  I wondered what their faces would look like.  I thought back to Danny’s, that day in the alley way.  I’d felt so good afterwards, so tall, and clean and fresh.  I’d inhaled his stinking fear as soon as I’d opened the car door.  He could try and hide it behind a surly expression, and a monotone voice, but I could smell it, and there was nothing he could do about that.  I’d thought briefly about just grabbing him, just punching him in the head or something, taking him by surprise and slinging him into the boot of the car.  Just for the hell of it.  I could drive somewhere and open it up and let him out, laughing.  Just for the hell.  Just for the kicks.  Just to see the look on his face. 

            But this was more fun.  The waiting, and the watching, and the observing.  I felt calm again, for the first time in ages.  I felt like I had them all back in the centre of my palm, and their fate lay there, unsuspecting and blind.  They knew nothing.  They were rats in a cage, waiting for me to make my move.  And here was one of them now.  Anthony Anderson.  Leaving the building to make his early shift at the pub.  I watched him push through the heavy metal door at the bottom.  He stopped, workbag slung on one shoulder, and lit up a cigarette, blinking and wincing in the bright morning sun.  He had not seen the car yet.  He shoved his lighter into his back pocket, and inhaled on his cigarette hungrily, as if he had been craving it for some time.  Then he yawned, and scratched at his head.  He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and I could see the intricate tattoos winding up and down each forearm.  What a tough guy, eh?  What a piece of work.

            He strode purposefully towards the crumbling brick wall that cornered off their crappy little piece of shit garden.  He always walked like that.  Fast and strong, his head held high, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the area, a ready smile on his lips, but not for me, not on that morning.  He stopped when he saw the car.  He lifted his cigarette to his lips and dragged long, and slow, before flicking ash at the ground and stalking quickly around the wall.  “Fuck this,” I heard him mutter, as I rolled down my window to greet him.  He walked along the side of my car, and then aimed a kick at it, booting the back door as hard as he could. I merely shook my head, and turned the engine off.  “Oi!” he called out, stopping at my window and bending down.  His eyes, dark brown and outraged, burned into mine.  “You lost or something mate?”

            I stretched my arm out of the window, and tapped the ash from my own cigarette out onto the ground between his feet.  Anthony looked me up and down, and I could see his skin shaking, from anger, from fear, from barely contained disbelief.  “What the fuck do you want?” he asked, when I continued to smile up at him.

            I tipped my head. “Now that’s friendly, all you boys are so friendly!”

            “I asked you a question.  What the fuck do you want?”

            My smile stretched out across my clean shaven face.  I felt a little giddy, and dreamy, as I looked up into his blazing dark eyes.  “Well, if you’re really interested, I wanted to have a quick word with my step-son again.  Is he in?”

            “No,” he snapped quickly, letting me know right away that he was.  “He’s not.  You stay the hell away from him, I’m warning you!”

            I blew smoke up into his face, and watched him pull back, his eyes fluttering in their sockets as he waved a hand in front of him. “Well maybe you could pass a message onto him then, how about that? Maybe you could tell him that I dropped by to say hello, and maybe I’ll drop by again another day, just for a chat, you know?  Just to catch up and see how he’s doing.”  My grin crept upwards, my teeth shining out at him. 

            “Listen to me,” the boy snarled suddenly, pushing his face as close to mine as he dared to.  “You don’t scare me, right?  I see you for exactly what you are.  I am telling you now.  I am fucking warning you.  Stay the hell away from us or I am calling the cops, do you hear?  Danny wants nothing to do with you, not ever, so get that through your fucked up head, and stay away!”

            “Well listen, there’s no law that says I can’t drop by and say hello to my step-son if I feel the need,” I replied to him calmly.  “I’ve got something I need to talk to him about.  I think he’ll be interested, once he gets a chance to hear it.”

            Anthony was shaking his head.  “You’re unbelievable,” he breathed, pulling away from the window, as obvious sweat broke out across his frowning forehead.  “You’re completely fucking insane if you think he wants to hear anything you’ve got to say!  After what you did!  Don’t forget, arsehole, me and Mike were there the day he stabbed your vile paedo friend!  We know how far you’ll go to control and frighten someone, and it turns my stomach, it makes me sick! I ought to go to the cops! You’d be finished if we told them everything!”

            I could see he was hoping this would alarm me.  But it did nothing of the kind.  I was laughing so hard my shoulders were shaking with it.  I looked up at his face, and he stood back, straightened up and dragged on his cigarette. “Go on get out of here,” he said to me coldly, flicking his head towards the road. “You’re vile. Get away from here.”

            I leant forward suddenly then, taking him by surprise, and loving it.  He was caught off guard by the ferocity of my movements, and stepped back again, blinking, his lips pressed down over his teeth.  “Real tough guy aren’t you?” I asked him, sneeringly.  “Yeah, look at you, talking to me like that, when you’re the one who’s done time.  Twice.  Very, very naughty boy, weren’t you eh? Thought that would shut you up.  Don’t like the thought of going back there a third time, do you boy?”  I raised my eyebrows at him and smiled slowly.  He thought he was a big man, but I could see the truth.  He was nothing of the sort.  He was another scared kid, too big for his own boots, playing with fire.  I nodded at him. “Just pass the message onto him, or I’ll go up there and tell him myself.  Tell him I’m never very far away.”

            “Well come on then!” he yelled at me then, lifting his arms up to either side in frustration. He let his workbag drop to the pavement and beckoned me.  “What are you waiting for then?  Come on!  We’re all just dying to know what you’re gonna’ do!  Come on then! Why don’t you take it out on me, eh?  Try it on with me!” He nodded at me, daring me, sucking on his smoke and flicking ash at my car.  “Come on then,” he urged me. “Take it out on me, take all your sick shit out on me, just you and me, right now, I fucking dare you!  Get out of your shitty little car and try it on with me! Or do you only like your chances with little kids and women?  Is that it?  Hey?” He looked satisfied, and stepped closer to lean down towards me again.  “That’s the truth of it, isn’t it big man?  That’s the real truth, and it’s exactly what I’ve always said about you…You’re a big cowardly bully. You won’t get out your car and take me on, will you?  You had to get another cowardly piece of slime to do your dirtiest work for you, didn’t you?  How do you sleep at night?  Really?  How the fuck does someone like you sleep at night? You get your kicks controlling people, frightening people who are smaller, and weaker than you…burning them with cigarettes, for fucks sake! What the fuck is wrong with you, you evil motherfucking bastard!”

            I stared back at him, and I yawned.  “You finished?” He shook his head at me.

            “No. Come on.  I’m serious.  Get out your car and fight me.  Show me you’re not a coward and a bully, or I’ll go to the police right now, and tell them all about your drug dealing, child abusing ways!”

            I offered him a knowing smile and a gentle shrug of the shoulders. “Well I might have to drop a call to them myself,” I told him.  “Now that I know where my step-son lives.  I better fill them in.  How he’s unfortunately got himself mixed up with a drug dealing ex-con.  Still see Jaime don’t you eh?  Oh yeah, got tabs on you son.  Got tabs on everyone.  I just hope you don’t have anything up there that might get you into trouble when the cops come calling.  I think they’d send you down for a very long stretch, wouldn’t they eh?  And what would happen to your little brother then?  No one else to look out for him, or so I hear.  Hmm.  I suppose I could keep an eye on him for you?  See what he needs?  What he likes?”

            He threw his cigarette down, and gripped the roof of the car, his head shooting in close to mine.  I did not flinch.  I considered a fast and brutal head butt; shattering his nose all over the pavement.  “We’ve got far more shit on you!” he snarled at me.  I laughed.

            “Well fine.  If you want to risk it.  But if I was you I would make arrangements for Michael first.  You know.  You wouldn’t want to leave him to fend for himself when the cops drag you away again, would you?  Just something to think about.”

            “I’m not scared of you,” he told me then. “You disgusting slug.  I’m not a sixteen year old kid.  Does it make you feel good, does it?  Scaring him?  Fucking up his life again?  Is that what makes you happy?  You don’t think you’ve tortured that kid enough?  You can’t just leave him the fuck alone?” He touched his head with his hands, shaking it in exasperation.  “It’s not fair,” he started saying then. “It’s not fair what you’re doing…just leave him alone why don’t you?  Just worry about your own life.  After everything that you’ve done…it’s just not fair…”

            I could see what he was trying to do now.  His tone had softened, and his eyes were searching my face wonderingly.  He was trying something else.  Seeing if there was another way he could get through to me.  I looked past him, my gaze tracking up to the tall building behind him.  “I did everything I could to be a father, and a good influence to that boy.  I thought I’d done all I could, and it was all too late.  But it turns out it’s not too late, you see.  I can give him one more chance.”

            “You’re crazy,” the boy muttered, shaking his head. “You’re just crazy…leave him alone…he doesn’t want to know you.”

            “Well it’s very honourable, all this care you show for him.”

            “He’s my friend!”

            “Just tell him I want to see him,” I snapped, suddenly bored of all this, bored of his glaring, stubborn face, bored of going back and forth with him, not getting anywhere.  I turned the key in the engine, and he stepped back quickly. “Just tell him we have unfinished business, and he might as well talk to me and see what I have to say.”  I checked the mirrors and slipped the car into gear.

            “You shouldn’t keep pushing him!” the boy was yelling at me now.  “He’s on the edge after everything you’ve done!  One of these days he’s gonna’ turn around and fight back, you know!  He’s gonna’ stand up to you!”

            I laughed out loud as I swung the car away from the kerb.  I heard him yelling, and he kicked the car again as I did a three point turn.  I could let that slide, for now.  He’d be paying for that before he fucking knew it.  I drove off, casually, calmly, as if the roads were mine, as if I had not a care in the world, and really, I didn’t.  It was all coming together in my head you see.  All of it. 

 

            I continued to circle the streets of Belfield Park in my car, like a low, sleek shark, moving in on its prey.  I liked the feel of it, I have to be honest about that.  As I trawled the streets, I felt on some deep and primal level, like a hunter, stalking my victim.  The thought always brought a smile to my lips, as my hands worked the steering wheel smoothly, as my eyes scanned the pavements, the doorways and the shops.  I didn’t want to go up to their crumby bed-sit just yet.  That would be the last resort.  I could be cleverer than that, and after all, at the end of the day, it was all for the boys own good. There was a constant, warm and soothing calmness to my movements and to my thoughts.  I had a feeling the boy would soon see sense.  I had a good idea, a really good idea, and I just wanted to talk to him about it.  I thought about the other two boys and rolled my eyes in impatience.  They were like the fucking guards of filthy, shitty bed-sit kingdom.  They were always there, weren’t they?  Lurking. 

            And so, whenever I had spare time to kill, I kept the car rolling, trundling around the block.  I mostly felt at ease as I drifted around.  I felt calm, and controlled, as my thoughts were laid out as neatly as my plans.  The only thing that interrupted the relative tranquillity I existed in, was the occasional grumbling and sniping that came from the voice at the back of my mind.  The voice that poked and needled at me, reminding me that Kay was not to be trusted, reminding me that I was running out of time.  There was a clock ticking somewhere, and I could not afford to forget about it.

            I parked the car in the darkness of the shadows and killed the engine.  I kept my eyes on their scummy building.  I sat slumped in the seat, and chain smoked cigarettes, keeping my eyes on the grotty looking people that came and went.  It was twenty to eleven.  I already knew Anthony was out.  I had driven past The Ship to make sure.  So the two younger boys were up there alone, and this excited and amused me.  I killed time just imagining their faces would look like if I marched on up there, kicking down their door.  I tried to imagine whether they would try to run, or attempt to fight.  What would they do?  I thought I would probably grab them both by the hair, smash their skulls together and then hurl them to the floor.  That would be a good start, and the image brought a smile to my lips, but I knew I would not be going up there like that tonight. 

            I glanced up suddenly then, using my elbow against the door to hoist myself up when I heard the heavy metal door clanging on the building.  I could see him, Danny, just outside the building, lighting a cigarette while that little dog of his scampered about in the straggly grass.  Wee wee time for the little rat, usually around the same time every night.  I did not hesitate. I got quickly out of the car and strode towards him. 

            He was dressed in these awful ripped black jeans, looked like they hadn’t seen a washing machine in some time, and this baggy, shapeless grey hooded jumper.  Before he noticed me, he was just smiling inanely at the dog as it squatted in the grass to take a shit.  I held up my hands and approached him.  When he saw me, his eyes widened like saucers, and the cigarette slipped through his fingers and landed, smouldering in the grass, and then he turned in a panic, and fumbled for the door.  “Hang on, hang on, wait!” I called out, still holding up my hands.  “I just want to talk to you a minute!  Hold on!” I stopped walking and nodded at the ground under my feet. “I’ll just stop here yeah?”

            He glared back at me.  His eyes outraged, disbelieving.  “What now?” he growled, and I felt my skin prickling at the contempt in his tone.  I swallowed.

            “Just want a quick word, that’s all I want,” I assured him.  “Just a quick word.”

            “I don’t want to talk to you, not ever. I want you to go away and stop hanging around here.  Or I’ll call the police.  I’ve already spoken to them you know.”

            I was intrigued.  “Really?  Have you?  What about?”

            “About you!” he cried out. “About you stalking us!  I told them!”

            “Oh,” I said, nodding and stroking my chin. “Well that’s the first I’ve heard about it.  They haven’t said anything to me yet.  Maybe they’re too busy out fighting real crimes, eh?” I watched his face crease up in dismay and confusion.  “Sorry,” I told him. “I just want to talk a minute.”

            “They said they can’t do anything,” Danny told me, his eyes flashing with hatred. “Until you’ve committed an actual crime, so why don’t you get one with it then?  Whatever you’re gonna’ do?”

            “Well listen Danny, this is what I want to talk to you about, I just want a quick word then I’ll leave you be.” I lowered my hands and chuckled softly. “That’s not too much to ask is it?”

            “Yes it is,” he replied scathingly.  “I want you the fuck away from me. I’ve had enough.”

            “Oh calm down,” I advised him with a brief roll of my eyes.  “Stop getting your knickers in a twist, and just listen.  I have something to put to you, something to discuss.  We can talk here, or we could go somewhere else if you like?  Maybe a pub, or back at mine?  It’s up to you.”

            He had one hand wrapped around the edge of the open door. His eyes drifted up and down me. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”

            “We’ll talk here then, fine,” I said amiably, stepping towards him. 

            “What is it?” he asked.

            “Well, it’s about Jack,” I started, and immediately I saw the alarm fill his eyes, and he shuffled closer to the door, pushing one side of his body through the gap and staring back at me with wary eyes.  “He was very handy to have around, you know, I sort of miss him now he’s gone.  He was my right hand man, I suppose you would say.  He took care of a lot of business for me.  I haven’t been able to replace him see, because there’s no one I can really trust.  So I thought, I would offer you the job.”

            He was shaking his head very slowly.  His mouth was slightly open, and his eyes appalled. “The job?” he uttered, as the little dog scuttled through his legs and into the hallway.  “Are you fucking insane?”

            I sighed, tiring slightly now.  Why did everything always have to be such a fight, and a battle with him?  Couldn’t he see a good opportunity when it was staring him in the face?  “Oh don’t be so melodramatic,” I said to him. “It’s not like you’ve ever been squeaky clean, is it?  And I bet you’re not now either!  Jack had a job, didn’t he?  A position.  Earned himself some good money too.  I’m offering it to you Danny.  You’d be great at it.”  I pushed my hands into my pockets and shrugged my shoulders at him loosely.  “What do you say?  You’d be rolling in it in no time.  You wouldn’t have to live in this shit hole.  You could have Jack’s place, all to yourself, if you wanted.”

            He just stared at me.  “You mean drug dealing?”

            “Among other things,” I smiled. “It’s a colourful position, you wouldn’t get bored.  I thought you’d jump at the chance actually.  Right up your street I should imagine.”

            “You don’t know anything about me!” he screamed at me then, his fingers clutching at the door, his eyes growing round and wild with a rage I could not fathom.  The blueness of his eyes stood out all the more against his pale face, drained of all colour.  “You never did!”

            “What are you saying?  You don’t want to get rich?  You don’t want a stable job with good prospects?  A nice place to live?”  I clicked my tongue and raised my eyes up at the grotty hole they called home.  “Are you sure?  Why would anyone want to live like this?  Here?  I don’t understand you.”

            “You…you…” the boy stopped and looked wildly around at nothing, as if he had lost the words he intended to speak.  His chest was rising and falling at speed, his breathing had become laboured and heavy.  “You…you have no idea…” He pointed a shaking finger at me then.  “Why the fuck would I want to work with you?  Do you think I’ve forgotten what you did to me?  Do you think I’ve forgotten about Jack?” His eyes bore into mine, heavy with a disgust that made me stiffen. 

            “Jack was a loose cannon in the end,” I tried to tell him. “That’s why I sent him away.  He’d lost the plot.  Couldn’t control himself…But me and you, we could work well together Danny.  Think about it.  I’m giving you a chance here.  You don’t even really deserve one after all the shit you’ve put me through, but here I am again, trying again, trying to help you. I still hold onto hope that you’ll listen to me!”

            “No,” he was saying, looking away, shaking his head, “no, no, no, just get away, just go away…” He pulled the door open, slipped through it and tried to close it on me, but I was too quick, shoving my foot and thigh into the space.  His eyes met mine, dark with anger.

            “Think about it carefully,” I warned him then.  “Don’t make any more mistakes Danny.  You’ve run out of chances. Don’t fuck it up again.  Think about what you are turning down.  You don’t want to regret it..”

            “Anthony!” he turned and screeched into the hallway.  I winced at the sound of his shrill tones, echoing up the stairwell.  I felt my patience slipping, and my calmness growing jagged.

            “Fucks sake,” I muttered, leaning close. “Don’t be such a cry baby, he’s not here, and I know he’s not.  I’m giving you an opportunity here!  I’m giving you another chance to make amends!”

            “Leave…me…alone!” He faced me and hissed it at me through the gap in the door, and then he jutted his face towards mine and spat a mouthful of gob out onto the ground.  It landed between my feet and I stared at it and shook my head at it, at him.  I looked up and smiled patiently.

            “You really didn’t want to do that little man.”

            “What do I have to do to get it through to you?” he said to me then, and his voice was this hard, brittle thing, rushing out between his clenched teeth. “Leave me the fuck alone or I am going to kill you!”  He yanked hard on the door, and I could hear voices reverberating up and down the stairs, people coming out to see what the noise was about, so I pulled my foot back and let him go.  The metal wobbled and vibrated right in front of my stunned face.  I was suddenly shaking, fuming, boiling over with impossible heat.  That ungrateful little shit had spat at me!  He had threatened to kill me, he had spat at me, and he had slammed the door in my face!  I stepped back quickly, panting.  My tongue seemed to loll from my mouth as I struggled to breathe through the torrent of rage that rushed through me.  This terrible, gut wrenching realisation was pounding at my head.  He hadn’t learnt a thing.  Not one fucking thing.  That defiant little shit.  Nothing had worked, nothing.

82

 

 

May 1996

            They were not happy about me seeing her.  None of them were.  None of them, except Anthony.  He didn’t say much about it, but I got the feeling that he was the only one who sort of understood it.  He never gave me any grief about it anyway, never tried to talk me out of going.  “Shittinghell, not again,” Michael would roll his eyes and complain every time he found out I had been to see her.  I didn’t tell them when I was planning it, but they always knew by the time I returned.  “You’re insane,” he would tell me, shaking his head. “And why the hell do you have to be so secretive all the time?  It’s like when you were on drugs, only I think I preferred that!”  I’d shrug my shoulders, keep my thoughts to myself, and allow him the opportunity to do the same.  “How do you make sure it’s safe?” he would ask me sometimes. 

            “I go when he’s at work,” I told him simply.  “We sit by the window, so we can see if his car comes. I’d run out the back.”

            “He’s gonna’ find out,” Michael gripped my arm, and his dark eyes searched mine, pleading with me.  “One way or another, sooner or later, this is gonna’ backfire.”

            “He’s old enough to make his own decisions,” Anthony spoke up for me from across the room.  Michael glared at him, and Anthony returned his glare with a patient smile. “It’s his business if he wants to help her Mike.”

            The very idea seemed to enrage him.  He stood up from the bed, his feet hitting the floor with a bang.  He looked between Anthony and I accusingly, as if we were in on this together, just to infuriate him. “Why bother?” he demanded to know. “What has she ever done for him?  One day, that psycho maniac is gonna’ catch on, and then they’ll both be dead meat!”

            It was obviously an idea I had entertained myself, many times.  But nothing ever happened.  Howard remained what he had been for almost a year now.  A gruesome and somewhat ghostly figure from the past.  We still hurried out of Redchurch after a certain time, and life went on.  I visited my mother when I could, which was usually once or twice a month, and I said very little about it to anyone.  I still didn’t fully understand it myself, so what was the point in trying to explain it to the people who hated her?  The thing was, every time I saw her, she seemed stronger, more like the old her.  It made me smile, you see, when I saw her like that.  I remembered some good times we had shared, in between annoying boyfriends.  Her, John and I, muddling our way through together.  There had been good times before, before everything happened, and it felt nice to remember them.  She would sit and stare at me with this shininess to her eyes, telling me about funny things I did and said when I was a little kid.  She had the old spark back, maybe.  That fire in her eyes, and instead of clashing, we were meeting somewhere in the middle, as friends.  She had confided in John to a certain extent.  Told him that she wanted to leave Lee, and set up on her own.  He was prepared to help her when the time came.  He had opened a bank account in his name and posted her the debit card and the pin number.  She could put money in whenever she wanted, save up for her escape, and Howard would not realise a thing.

            I would go and see Lucy afterwards.  I’d be a bit high on the adrenaline of it all.  She would look at me the same way Michael did.  Fear and reproach in her eyes, and every word she spoke, picked out cautiously, just in case.  “I feel better,” I tried to tell her.  “I can’t explain it.  It doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven her, or we’re all okay, it’s just I feel better when I talk to her.  It’s helping me understand stuff.  I can’t explain it to you any better than that.”  She would just slip her arms around me, rest her head down on my shoulder and hold me tight.  She wouldn’t say anything about it unless I pushed her.

            “I’m just scared,” she would say, a flicker of a smile dancing on her lips before fading away again.  “Silly me.  I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

 

            They were more on edge than I was.  I don’t know why.  One night we were mucking about at the back of the disorderly crowd that queued to get into Chaos, when Michael became utterly convinced he had seen Howard’s car.  One moment it had all been laughing and joking, pushing each other about, and ruffling Billy’s new haircut, and the next, it all changed.  Michael, his face as white as a sheet, his hand reaching and clinging to his brothers arm, while his other pointed down the road, to the fast disappearing brake lights of a low, silver car.  Anthony slapped him on the back and told him to get his act together.  “Millions of cars like that about,” he moaned, rolling his eyes at me.  “For fucks sake Mikey. Don’t give us all the willies when we’re here to have a good night.”

            The atmosphere had changed completely.  Before Michael got scared, it had been electric, pumped full of joyful apprehension and the sense of belonging.  “Sorry,” he started mumbling, when we all looked on uneasily, shuffling closer together, our hairs on end, our good feeling dead inside of us.  I didn’t blame him.  I couldn’t count how many times I had felt my heart stop at the sight of a silver car.  But I had learnt to live with it.  What else could you do?  I looked at my friends then and felt like a shit who didn’t deserve them.  They were all tense, forcing smiles, while their eyes flitted about nervously, and their imaginations worked over time.  I felt a guilt so heavy it made it difficult to breathe.

 

            A similar thing happened just a few weeks later.  Enough time had passed to convince us to breathe again, to relax our shoulders, and go with the flow.  We came out of Chaos at two in the morning, sweat shining on our foreheads, our eyes alive with the music that still pumped through our veins.  As usual, I felt on top of the world.  I was right up there, right up there in the sky, pounding my feet upon the earth, shaking it up.  I had one arm around Lucy as we drifted down the road and towards the takeaway place on the corner.  We were craving chips and kebabs, followed by a smoke and wind down music back at the bed-sit.  They’d played my Smiths request just before we bustled out, and I was still singing it in a loud and drunken voice, as we bundled down the road together. Lucy clung to me, and smiled as I sung; “And after all this time, they don’t want to believe us…and if they don’t believe us now, will they ever believe us?” I looked at Lucy, kissed her forehead and she laughed at me. “And when you want to live, how do you start? Where do you go?  Who do you need to know?”

            “You’re nuts,” she told me, wrapping both arms around my middle.  I could feel the sweat on my back drying in the night air. “But I like it when you’re nuts,” she added.  We had reached the shop, and we piled noisily in through the double doors, leaving only Billy and Jake outside to finish their cigarettes.  Anthony was ribbing Michael about some girl he had pulled.

            “Old enough to be your fucking mother,” he was laughing as Michael viewed him with cool distain.

            “Just jealous,” he responded calmly.  “I saw you giving her the eye.”

            We ordered our food, laughing and talking easily, with sleepy eyes and groaning bellies.  We were heading back towards the doors, when Jake pushed them open and scuttled in, Billy at his elbow, both of them wide-eyed and alarmed. It was Anthony they went to.  I saw Jake grab his elbow, pull him close, and all at once I felt like the floor of the kebab shop had turned to mush beneath my feet, and I was sinking, sinking slowly down.  “What is it?” Anthony was saying, maintaining his cool exterior as always, holding the door open while we pushed cautiously back outside. “What?  What did you say?”

            I hung back, my hands warming under the white polystyrene container that held the kebab I now did not have the stomach for.  I felt Lucy slide her arm through mine.  I saw Michael sidling anxiously to his brothers side, while Jake spoke to him, in hushed, earnest and slightly panicked tones. “Swear to god,” he was saying, leaning in to him, pointing with one hand out towards the narrow alleyway that ran between Boots and Woolworths opposite the kebab shop. “Over there. Billy thought so too, didn’t you Billy?”

            “Stop panicking, everyone, stop panicking,” Anthony told us, shoving his kebab and chips at Jake. “Hold this.”  We all watched breathlessly as he crossed the street, and sauntered over to the mouth of the alley.  He was swallowed by the blackness, for just a second, and then reappeared, holding up his hands and shrugging.  “Nothing there,” he said, running back to us. “No one there.  You sure you saw him?”

            “Dunno,” Jake shrugged his shoulders and glanced sheepishly my way. “It was dark.  There was someone there, right Billy?  We saw a face when he lit up a fag.”

            “Was a big fella’,” Billy nodded, swallowing nervously. “Same kind of build.  Not much hair.”

            “Could’ve been anyone,” Anthony said, taking back his food and heading around the corner, towards home.  We scuttled after him, looking back over our shoulders. Jake was looking very confused, and scratching at his neck.

            “It was really dark,” he said, looking at me. “Probably wasn’t him…Sorry everyone.”

            “You obviously thought it was him,” argued Michael, catching him up. “Or you wouldn’t have looked so panicked, and told Anthony.  I thought I saw his car weeks ago.”

            “Calm down, calm down,” Anthony was telling us all.  He reminded me of a sheepdog then, herding us all back home, munching sporadically on his chips, while he lingered at the back, his eyes moving restlessly across the darkness.  We scurried on, and he held the door open while we piled into the dank, foul smelling hallway of our building.  I watched him close the door slowly, sticking his head out for one last scout of the area before he let it slam heavily behind him.  He turned and exhaled in relief, and saw me staring at him, as the others started up the stairs.  “It’s alright,” he said. “Take no notice.  They’re jumping at shadows.  It was nothing mate.”

            “Yeah, I know,” I told him. “I’m not worried.”

            “Good,” Anthony started up the stairs beside me.  “Let’s not let it ruin our night.”

            “I’m not worried,” I repeated, and he looked at me then, as if he did not believe me.  At the top of the stairs, they all waited for Anthony to unlock the door and let them in.  They looked shaken up, scared and huddled together.  I couldn’t resist a look back over my shoulder as I came up behind him, my eyes staring into the darkness below, my ears straining for the sound of footsteps.  Once we were inside the bed-sit, Anthony closed and double locked the door and then just stood with his back to it for a moment, just breathing, not looking at anyone.  Lucy went into the kitchen and started to fill the kettle.  Michael paced about, from window to window, rubbing his arms and staring out at nothing.  Billy and Jake collapsed onto the bed, murmuring to each other, their foreheads creased with frowns.  I felt like a massive shit.  They were seeing shadows, freaking out at the slightest thing, all because of me.  All because I was seeing my mum, stirring up the past, making them feel unsafe again.  I decided I would cancel our next meeting.  I would phone her in a few days and tell her what had happened.  I felt Kurt’s tiny paws on my legs, and stooped down to pick him up. 

            “Better to be safe than sorry, eh,” I muttered, burying my face in the soft fur around his neck.

 

           

 

 

 

 

83

 

 

May 1996

            “Why do you only ever listen to ‘The Queen Is Dead’?” Terry was asking me, in what sounded like genuine puzzlement.  I was crouched down next to the door, with a tower of cassette tapes beside me.  A lady in her forties had just dropped a box of old tapes in for us.  She’d spent a good twenty minutes telling Terry how her husband had been having an affair, so she had started dumping and selling all of his treasured possessions behind his back in revenge.  She hadn’t wanted any money for the tapes, which was fortunate, because most of them were shit.  I was busy shelving them, and as most of them seemed to be by Abba, I was knelt by the door, in the A section, shoving them in one by one.  My facial expressions were changing rapidly from dismay, to disgust, to outright horror. 

            “Because it’s my favourite one obviously,” I replied to Terry’s question. “Why do you only ever listen to ‘Blonde On Blonde’?”

            “It’s the best one,” Terry told me authoritatively. 

            “In your opinion,” I corrected him.

            “But what you are forgetting,” he went on regardless, “is that The Queen is lacking the best song the Smiths ever wrote.”

            I rolled my eyes.  The man was obsessed. “’Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before’?”

            “Exactly.  Best Smiths song ever and it’s not on The Queen.”

            “It’s still a bloody good album Terry. What about ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’?  I love that song.”

            “Not as good as Stop Me.”

            “Isn’t it time we had a cup of tea?”

            “I don’t know Danny,” he sighed, rising slowly from his stool. “Remind me who’s the boss again eh?”

            I looked up in time to see him smiling knowingly as he headed out the back.  It was his way of ending arguments about music that would have no ending, unless he reminded me who the boss was.  That was how he won the arguments, you see.  I’m the boss, it’s my shop, therefore I must be right about everything.  He had asked me the same question this morning when I had turned up early for work.  He’d shook his head at me, pointed at the kitchen and told me to get the tea on. 

            I went back to my work, dusting off a Dolly Parton cassette and shoving it ungracefully into the D section.  ‘The Boy With The Thorn In His Side’ was playing on the record player, so I started to hum along to it.  I picked up the next tape, and rubbed it on my thigh to clean it off, and that was when I saw a shadow fall over me.  I looked up at the door quickly, but the shadow fell away, and the sun blinded me, bouncing off the windows and the cars parked on the road, and whoever had stopped at the door to stare in, had moved away.  It took a second for my mind to catch up with my body, and then I took a steadying breath, got to my feet, opened the door and peered out down the street.  I put up one hand to shield my eyes from the bright morning sun, and I can’t deny, I had the sudden strangling urge to close and lock the door.  I pushed it down though, because I had to, because I had seen nothing, heard nothing.  I went back to the tapes. 

            Moments later Terry waddled back in, holding mugs of tea and sloshing them over his belly as he walked. I slipped the last tape, an Elvis compilation, into a space in the E section, and approached the counter for my tea, wiping my dusty hands down the legs of my jeans.  Terry eyed me curiously.  “What’s the matter with you?  Seen a ghost?  You’ve gone all pale.”

 

            I could have gone home at threeish, but I’d just discovered I liked Johnny Cash, after getting into an argument about country music with a bearded man who was a regular.  He was one of the very few customers that Terry allowed to hang around the counter, drinking tea and talking about music.  He’d finally got tired of my smirks and sneers about country music and had demanded Terry put some Cash on the record player.  I’d folded my arms across the counter, slipped into my own little world, and listened. Moments in and my foot was tapping, my head was nodding and I had to admit that I liked it.  “The Man in Black,” the bearded man tipped his head at me and winked. “You cannot be a music fan and not appreciate The Man In Black.” 

            “Cool,” I agreed with a smile.  Terry merely groaned at me.

            “See I’ve told you before not to be so narrow minded about music.”

            I snorted in response.  “Says he that sneers at nearly everything that’s been given the Brit Pop label!”

            “I do not,” he argued back.  “I was the one who told you how big Oasis would be!  And I like Blur, and I think Pulp are amazing, among others.  It’s all the other hanger-on’s I can’t stand, the bandwagon jumpers!”

            “You’re scathing about it as a genre,” I reminded him patiently.

            “Because I hate genres, because if you give something a name, or a label, or pack it away in a fucking genre then it’s far too easy to kill it or declare it dead.  Look at your precious grunge sonny boy, what happened to that?”

            I shook my head in despair.  “You know what happened to that Terry.”

            “Excuse me, a type of music does not just end because one singer tops himself!”

            “I never said it had ended,” I argued back. “You’re saying that!  I still love grunge.  I love all music.”

            The bearded man laughed at us, patted me on the back and finished his tea.  He picked up his purchases and slipped them under one arm. “You do now kid,” he told me, and walked towards the door.  I sighed and started to search the shelves for Cash records, while Terry sniggered at me from behind the counter.

            “Here he goes again,” he chortled. “Walk The Line is the best one, you know.”

            “In your opinion,” I replied.

 

            We closed up at five, Terry shooing the last doe-eyed indie kid out of the door with a copy of Suede’s Dog Man Star tucked under one arm.  Terry had spent the last ten minutes trying not to laugh at the poor kid, who in his khaki duffel coat and John Lennon glasses, had tried and failed to engage Terry in a meaningful debate about the next big thing.  “Fucking Liam Gallagher wannabe,” Terry groaned when the door was locked.  “Can’t anyone just be themselves these days?  You don’t see me walking around walking with a bloody Morrissey hair cut do you?”

            “You couldn’t have one anyway,” I told him with a grin as I fetched Kurt’s lead down from the hook out the back. “Your hairline is receding.  You could have a Phil Collins.” My shoulders were shaking with giggles as I clipped the lead onto the dogs collar.

            “Don’t ever mention that jumped up little bastards name in my shop again young man!” came his petulant roar from behind the till where he was stood cashing up.  “I’ve warned you before smart arse! That name is not to be spoken in here, unless you want the sack!”

            I opened the back door. “That, and Rod Stewart yeah?”

            “Post The Faces, yes, that name is also banned!”

            “I’ll have to make a list,” I called out.  “See you tomorrow Terry!”

            “See you tomorrow mate.”

            I closed the door behind me and headed down the alley with Kurt trotting at my side.  I stopped to locate my cigarettes, and light one up, thinking I would just about have time to smoke one before my bus arrived.  As I cupped my hands around the cigarette, I heard a car purring softly up behind me, and without turning to look at it, I moved to the side to allow it to pass.  It trundled slowly past me, as I puffed on my smoke and shoved the lighter into my back pocket.  It was moving slowly, so I gave it a quick glance, and walked behind it.  It crawled to a stop at the end of the alley, and just sat there, the engine still running.  It was then that I saw the number plate, and stopped walking.  I felt myself shrinking fast, mentally and physically.  L-HOWARD. Howard’s car, it was his car, Howard, it was him.  Howard.  My eyes flashed up and down the alley, seeking a way out, as panic seized and crushed my heart, sending it beating into a wild frenzy that threatened to explode from my throat.  It was suddenly hard to breathe.  I stood in the alley, staring, one hand shaking with the cigarette, Kurt’s lead wound tightly around the other one.

            Howard.  I could feel it in every nerve and muscle in my body.  The engine remained running, but the car stayed where it was, blocking my way out.  I had to go that way.  My bus stop was that way, out on the main road.  If I walked back the other way, I would have to go all the way around and would miss the bus.  I looked down at Kurt and the little dog wagged his tail back at me unsurely.  I sucked in a lungful of air and hoped it would unfreeze my blood and give me the strength to keep walking.  I looked over my shoulder again, back at the shop.  I knew Terry would still be cashing up.  I looked back at the car, and it was still there, still waiting.  Long, and low, and silver, reminding me of a shark, circling its prey.  Kurt shivered and whined on the end of his lead so I looked down at him again.  “We want to go home, don’t we boy?” I said to him, and in response to my voice he wagged his tail so furiously that his entire body wagged with it.  “About the only time I’ve wished you were a Rottweiler,” I murmured, and looked back up, back at the car, still waiting.  What did he want?

            I sucked in another chest full of air and started to walk.  It felt almost alien, and totally wrong to be walking in that direction, towards that car.  My movements felt stiff and uncontrolled like a robots.  I kept telling myself that it was daylight, that there were people just around the corner, that there was nothing the bastard could do to me that he hadn’t already done.  As I got closer, the drivers door was shoved open, and he stepped out, leaving the engine on and flicking a cigarette butt to the ground as he got out.  I stopped moving.  I lifted my own cigarette to my lips, sucked on it hard, my eyes narrowing upon him, my other hand tightening on the dog lead.  There was a silence between us that took my guts and scrunched them up so hard they began to ache.  There was the hand, once more, inside my belly, clawing at my flesh, sending warning signals all over my body.  I lowered the smoke, breathed out slowly and waited to him to speak, waited for something to happen.  He was looking at me with a very calm, pleasant expression on his big face, but there was no denying the gleam in his eyes, because I had seen it a hundred times before.  Finally, his little thin eyebrows moved up and down rapidly and he spoke; “long time no see, eh little man?”

            I realised that my feet were frozen to the ground.  They felt like concrete all of a sudden, and this heavy, dragging feeling was spreading quickly through me.  “What do you want?” I heard myself asking him, my voice just above a mutter.  He cocked his head at me.  He rested one arm along the top of the open car door, and then his other hand tapped the roof of the car, in quick succession, boom, boom.  His eyes drilled into mine.

            “Saw you walking there,” he said. “Thought I’d say hello.  How are you?”

            “Fine,” I told him.

            “Your mum wonders how you are,” he said then, dropping his arm from the door and stepping away from the car.  I felt small again, as the man from my nightmares approached me, his big arms swinging in short shirt sleeves.  He stopped just in front of me, and his smile was radiant, and he seemed to inhale loudly, as if sucking up my fear through his flaring nostrils.  I wondered if he had missed it.  “She’s always asking about you, always wondering how you are.  You look well.  Off all those drugs now eh?”

            I could not answer him.  My throat had constricted, barely allowing me room to breathe, let alone speak.  I just kept my eyes on his, trying to read them, trying to understand what this was, what this meant.  He nodded his head at me calmly.  “Well you must be,” he concluded.  “You look so well.  Feeling better these days, eh?”

            “What do you want?” I asked him a second time.  The alley around us had become nothing but a grey blur.  It had ceased to exist.  There was nothing in the world, except myself, and Howard, and whatever was going to happen.

            “So suspicious,” he mused, allowing himself a soft chuckle.  “I only wanted to say hello and see how you are.  Your mum misses you, you know.  It’s been so long since she saw you.  You could visit her, you know.  She’d like that.”

            I was finding it torture, keeping my eyes on his, but I couldn’t risk looking away.  I was faintly aware of my chest rising and falling rapidly beneath my t-shirt, as my body tried again to kick start me into flight.  “I don’t think so,” I said. “Not while she’s with you.”  I pulled my feet up from the ground, and they felt like they were being sucked down into it, and I had just managed to put one foot in front of the other, when he took hold of my arm.  Just above the elbow, the grip was loose, but I froze, and it was everything in that awful second, as his power encircled my arm, it was everything, holding onto me, not letting me go, everything.  It all came back, in a horrendous flush of images and memories that slayed me, and made my legs turn to jelly, and my eyes threaten to weep.  I stared at the ground, because I could not bring myself to look back into that face while a thousand brutal images raced through my mind.

            “Whoa, slow down,” came his whispered reply, slick with glee.  “Why the hurry?  Don’t you want to come and see your mum?  I can give you a lift, right now, if you want.”

            I shook my head.  “No.  She can come here, if she wants to see me.”

            “Oh really?  Okay, I’ll pass that onto her,” and just like that, the hand fell away from me.  I stumbled forward, nearly tripping over my own feet in surprise, and I forced my legs on, forced my feet to keep moving on, not looking back. “I’ll give her the message,” the voice, thick with hunger, dripping with malice, followed me down the alley wall, echoing from the walls.  “’Cause she hasn’t seen you in so long, has she?  She misses you so much, you see.  See you soon then, yeah?  There’s a good lad.”

            I walked faster and faster, breaking into a run at the end of the alley, dragging poor Kurt with me, scurrying out onto the pavement, barely remembering to look both ways before I dashed out across the road towards the bus stop.  Seconds later the bus pulled up and I ran onto it, throwing down my money, yanking off my ticket and finding a seat at the back, where I sat and huddled with Kurt, against the window.  I was shuddering violently, and felt extremely close to being sick.

 

            I felt a little bit better when I stepped off the bus at the other end, and took another deep breath of relief, steadying my nerves.  I let Kurt do his business outside, before we opened the door and went into the building.  By the time I had dashed up the stairs and reached the bed-sit, I was worked right up again, my heart a monster in my chest, my mind questioning whether Howard would have followed the bus here.  I went inside, and saw Michael lying on his belly on the bed, with a can of beer in one hand.  I closed the door, locked it, then went to the window to peer out.  Michael was watching me, already suspicious.  “You okay?” he asked me, and I flashed him a quick, brittle smile, thinking to myself that he probably knew me better than anyone.

            “Yeah, fine,” I told him, and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on.  I filled it with water, switched it on to boil, and leant against the worktop with my arms wrapped tightly around my middle.  I shook my head and swore at myself.  Was I really going to do this again?  Lie to him?  Was I really going to be pretend nothing had happened and everything was fine?  Where had that got me last time?  I licked my lips, and stamped my foot and felt the frustration juddering through me.  What the fuck was I doing?  Before I could think twice, I stuck my head back through the curtains, and looked at Michael, still on the bed.  He looked up expectantly.  “Not okay actually,” I told him, and he was on his feet, and in the kitchen, and offering me his beer.  I took it, and his eyes focused in on my trembling hands.

            “What’s up?”

            “Just saw Howard.”

            “What?” Michael’s mouth gaped in horror and he stepped closer to me, his eyes bulging as I nodded back at him and leant back against the cupboard with the shivers twisting violently through me.  I gulped the beer as he continued to stare.  “Oh my fucking god.  When?  Where?  What happened?”

            “Outside the back of the shop, in the alley.  He drove past then stopped his car, and got out.”

            Michael covered his mouth with one hand, shook his head in misery. “Oh no.  What did he do?”

            “Nothing.  Acted all friendly.  Wanted to know how I was.”  I lifted my shoulders and dropped them, and passed Mike back his beer. “Asked if I wanted a lift to go and see my mum.”

            “Did he touch you?  Did he do anything to you?”

            “I started to walk away and he grabbed my arm, then that was it.  He said what he had to say.  Let go.  I walked away.”

            Michael swallowed beer and passed it back.  “You think he knows?  That you’ve been seeing your mum?”

            “I dunno, he didn’t give anything away, but maybe he does.  Yeah.  I mean…that would explain it.  Jesus Mike…” I sighed heavily, rubbed at my dry lips and then sloshed more beer down my throat.  I was shaking hard, and it was getting worse.  I wrapped my arms back around myself, trying to hold still, trying to calm down.  Michael kept shaking his head, his dark hair hanging over one eye, while the other stared out, solemn and afraid. 

            “He knows Danny, he must do, he must have found out!  I swear I saw his car at Chaos that time, then Jake and Billy thought they saw him in that alley…”

            I nodded at him.  “I know.”

            “What’re we gonna’ do?  He might have followed your bus here!  He might know exactly where we live!” Michael leant in the doorway and took the beer back from me.  He finished it off in nervous, little gulps. I stared at the floor and felt the strength leaving my legs, leaving all of me.  I wanted to lash out suddenly then.  I wanted to smash in all the cheap flimsy cupboard doors, and swipe my arm across the manky pint glasses collecting flies on the draining board.  I clenched my teeth together and tried to hold onto myself.  Michael was watching me.  I felt my legs weaken further.  Any minute now I was going to hit the floor.  “Danny?” he asked me softly. “You okay?”

            “No!” I retorted, quickly and fiercely, looking up.  “He called me a good lad.”

            “Did he?”

            “Good lad, he said.”

            “So?”

            “I don’t know…” I trailed off for a moment, not sure of what I meant, or how I felt, or anything, and I covered my face with my hands, and suddenly my knees dipped, and I went down, my arse bumping into the floor and staying there.  I buried my face in my knees, grabbed at my hair with my hands.  “Fuck!  Fuck!”

            Michael came forward.  “Mate?”

            “Fuck I don’t want to be like this!”

            “Like what mate?”

            “Like what he makes me!  A victim!”

            Michael crouched down slowly. “You’re not.  You’re not.”

            “I am!  I fucking am!  That’s what he makes me! That’s how he makes me feel, now I feel like it all over again!” I rolled my head into the cup of one hand, and stared at the floor.  My feet twitched at the ends of my legs.  I was remembering things I had fought so hard to forget.  I wanted to fight back, I wanted to do something, I wanted to kick the place apart. 

            “He doesn’t make you that Danny,” Michael was saying quietly. “You’re you, and he can’t touch you now.”

            “He’ll do whatever the fuck he wants.”

            “We won’t let him.  We’ll call the cops.  We’ll tell them everything.”

            I just glared at the same grubby spot on the lino, until my eyes moved out of focus, and I was not sure whether it was tiredness, or tears that blurred my vision.  In my mind I saw myself crushed down into the floor, a boot grinding into my neck, pushing me down, holding me in place, taking everything away.  “That’s not who I am,” I murmured to myself.  “He made me like that, and that’s not me, that’s not me.  I won’t be like that again.”

            “No way you fucking will be, I told you.  Come on mate, up you get.  Anthony will be home soon.  He’ll know what to do.” Michael nudged me, got to his feet and held his hand out to me.  “Come on,” he urged me.  “You’re you.  You’re not whatever he thinks you are.”

            “Good boy,” I muttered, distastefully, taking his hand and letting him haul me back to my feet.  I held onto my head with one hand, followed Michael through the curtain, and plonked myself down onto the bed.  The springs sagged and creaked beneath my weight.  Michael started to walk in small circles. 

            “We’ll find another place to live,” he was saying quickly.  “We need to move again, that’s what we need to do.  Get out of here.”  He stopped circling and looked at me.  “And please, please do not keep seeing your mum!”

            I nodded silently from the bed.  I had already decided that much myself. 

 

            “He’s trying to scare you,” Anthony told me firmly, when he had arrived home and been greeted with the news.  He carried some bags of shopping into the kitchen, put them on the side and strode back out again.  He regarded Michael and I, sat shivering on the bed, with a stern expression.  He kicked off his shoes and cracked his knuckles.  “Looks like he’s succeeded too, so he must be one happy motherfucker about now.”  He placed his hands on his hips and looked at us, shaking his head.  “Look, he doesn’t know where we live, that’s why he went to your shop.  He’s just trying to scare you.  Don’t let him.”

            “He must know I’ve been seeing mum,” I spoke up dryly.  Anthony nodded.

            “Yeah, probably.  Or he’s just bored and felt like stirring things up again.”

            “But why now?” Michael questioned helplessly. “It’s been like ten months or something!”

            Anthony shrugged at the pair of us. “Who knows how his sick mind works? Maybe he does know about Danny seeing his mum.  Danny, you should call her.  See what she says.”

            “What time is it?”

            “After six.”

            “Okay, pass me the phone.”

            Anthony grabbed the phone and chucked it at me.  “I’m putting the kettle on, and a shit load of chips, anyone in?”

            “We’re both in,” said Michael. “D’you buy any fish fingers?”

            I dialled the number and got up from the bed.  I stuck one hand into the pocket of my jeans and stalked restlessly around the room, while it rung.  It seemed to ring for a torturous eternity before finally she picked it up.  “Hello?”

            I stopped next to one of the windows and pressed my forehead against the cool glass.  “Mum, it’s me.”

            “Danny!  Are you alright?”

            “Mum, listen, does Lee know anything?  About us meeting? Or about you trying to leave him?”  I gazed down at the street below.  I watched a trio of young girls, dressed to kill and tottering on high heels towards the high street.

            “Why?” her voice immediately lowered and hushed with fear.  “What’s happened?”

            “I just saw him today,” I told her, feeling the give of the glass under my head, knowing I would only have to apply a little more pressure before it cracked against my skin.  “He was outside my work.  He spoke to me.”

            “Oh my god honey!  Oh god I am so sorry! As far as I know he knows nothing! But maybe he does….oh shit, how would he know?”

            “I dunno,” I told her tersely, wanting to hang up on her now.  “Just wanted to warn you.  I won’t see you again for a while mum.  I can’t.”

            “Okay, honey, I understand.  Maybe we could arrange to meet somewhere else?”

            “No.  Not at the moment.  I’ve got to go.”  I hung up on her and turned around.  Anthony was in the doorway, watching. “Says she doesn’t know anything,” I told him. “I told her I won’t be around again.”

            “Fair enough,” he nodded “But you see what he’s done here, don’t you? He’s left you alone for nearly a year, let you settle into your life, and relax.  It’s almost like he wanted you to relax and enjoy yourself, ‘cause then it’s all the more fun when he pops back up again!  He’s messing with your head mate.  Just don’t let him.”  With that, he ducked back through the curtain, and I was left staring.  Easy for you to say, I almost called after him.  Instead, I went back to the bed and lay down with the dog.  My eyes jerked towards the door every few seconds.  The spike of fear was sharp and turning within me.  That night I drifted in and out of restless dreams, one half of me convinced that Anthony was right, that nothing was going to happen, and the other half of me dismally certain that Howard holding onto my arm in the alley way, was just the beginning.