Here's the first chapter of a book (I won't call it a novel. Not into the word) I started years ago and finished and refinished and refinished and continue to refinish.
I should stop looking at it, because every time I have a read, there are changes I can't resist making.
I wrote it on scraps of paper, in notebooks, on the back of Aldi receipts, on my hand and up my arm. Not really, but the scraps of paper and the notebooks are true enough.
When I started writing I was well into the drugs bike and freshly obsessed with the needle. Ah, those halcyon days of sucking up blood and splattering it onto the cardboard innards of the novels of Burroughs et al.
Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
Anyway, here's the first chapter. If anyone likes it, I'll post chapter two.

Love&Inspiration,
Vee X

Cold rapid hands

Draw back one by one

The bandages of dark

I open my eyes

                       Still

I am living

                At the centre

Of a wound still fresh

     -Otavio Paz

               

 Prologue

Spare Some Loose Change

   It’s fuckin freezing under this blanket. I exhale slowly and watch my breath curl away like smoke. My god, I wish I had a cig. As I check the street for promising free-fag material, a group of evening-out wankers push out of the next door take away.

   -Got a spare cig mate?

A Burberry-jacketed cunt with a number one finished in bleach-blonde offers cigarettes around his mates from a full pack of Regal, looking at me like he’s about to piss himself laughing, trying to get the others to enjoy the joke, then they cross the road, running as they see their bus approaching, laughing, smoking-

   -Fock, fock sake, the fockin bus!-

-all dressed in various crease-ironed trousers, chequered shirts and kicker-style shoes.

   I open my resealable silver plastic bag to count the evening’s takings. Not bad, could be better. Too many coppers and five pees, but nearly there. Well there’re always too many coppers in this job, moving you on half the time but what can you do?  Another hour. Feet pass. Mostly steering away, all going somewhere- trainers; knee-length boots; skater shoes; DMs; Indian sandals with socks; strictly-no-trainers-no-jeans-club shoes. I keep my head down most of the time like, except for the odd occasion when change drops into the Man City hat I’ve got in front of me. Service with a smile, eh? Fuck me, it’s cold.

   It’s early March and a sharp wind’s threatening a drab spring. What your average non-pavement boy doesn’t appreciate is the cold. In a job like this, disillusionment creeps up on even the well prepared with alarming ferocity. And you know what, if I had a tenner here now and some change for the phone, I wouldn’t bother embarrassing myself sitting here any longer. But to be honest, I’m beyond embarrassment. I passed that stage years ago. I put it like that so you understand, but what I basically mean is, I wouldn’t waste my time freezing my arse off here, sat on my arse on a piece of cardboard in a skanky old blanket outside Abduls, if I didn’t have a cash flow problem, right? Right. So now we understand each other, I’ll let you take a closer look.

   If I was standing up, which I don’t usually bother with for a long session, more for the casual opportunist opportunities, you’d notice I’m not a short-arse or a tall kind of bloke, and there’s not much meat on my bones, like my auntie used to say when I wouldn’t eat up the carved carcases she forked onto my plate. Always liked my veg, but meat, I still can’t stand it. Used to chew it and gob out balls of the stuff, stick it on the ledge under the table. Still got a mohie: had it since I was in school. Not that I bother shaving the sides every day, or dye it much; well, I’ve got a cash flow problem like I said, so it’s a sort of cacky brown at the moment, which matches this height-of-fashion duffle coat. Wish I hadn’t sold my biker jacket now, but that’s life. I’d put about a thousand studs in it and done some wicked paintings all over it; copied that Exploited picture with all them punk skeletons on the back too off the album cover for Troops of Tomorrow. Looking back, it was worth more than the fifty measly quid I got for it and I bloody hate this poxy duffel coat, seriously. If I ever see Mogga again, I’ll buy it back; swear to god he had to squeeze himself into it cos he’s a fat bastard. I’m not offending him, he says so himself. He was giving me all that lecture bullshit and all the ‘are you sure about this, Scab face?’ shit when I sold it to him, but he was always admiring it, so I knew he’d be chuffed to buy it off of me.

   I cut the sleeves off this cunting duffel thing, fuck knows why, cos like I said, I’m bloody freezing now. At least I’ve got this navy hoodie and the mohair jumper I can curl my camouflaged knees up into in an attempt at warmth; yeah, it’s not a bad one either: Ites gold and green like the Rastaman who gave it to me said. Moses. ‘Gary, mon, jus satta, star’ he said when I offered him a fiver for it. Wouldn’t take a penny for it, not even a pint of Guinness. Yeah, he’s a top bloke, proper sorted, but I’ll tell you about him later, right, cos my boots are moulding themselves to my feet, they’re that cold. My toes are numb and that Manchester drizzle what came down earlier’s soaked my blanket, soaked everything, freezing my arse, which is also becoming dangerously numb. Ah, but here’s a drip of happiness, a bloke on a skateboard stops and hands us a couple of cigs…magic, eh? Minutes pass. Buses pass. Short skirts and stilettos pass, but do I look bothered?

   Check this out. After today, she’ll probably be here every fuckin night, on the dot, well I’d say on the dot if I had a watch, but you know what I mean. Here she comes, head bowed like Saint effin Ophelia, if there is a Saint Ophelia, that is, this wafer-thin girl. Approaching me now in her Hi-Tec squash shoes, white socks, red jeans. I look up at her: dark-haired, hollow-eyed, in an M&S jacket. Earnest-looking.

   -Hello?

She speaks tentatively with a soft RP accent. I mumble a reply; well, more of a grunt, shoving my money bag back into the inside pocket of my coat, looking sideways down the street at the neon curry house signs, the buses. The road and the pavement are Friday night busy. And I’m in a rush now, you know, fuckin aching to get this money changed up and shift. The girl coughs, crouches down in front of me. Biting her bottom lip, hands clasped. Here we go. I have her sussed before she even opens her mouth. I get them all the time; the do-gooder contingent, the god-squad, the wannabe social workers social wankers; social spastics. Helping you to help ourselves. Ok, I know, I’m sounding like a judgemental bastard now, right, but I’ll tell you about judgemental: the ones who spit at me, kick me and do a runner, throw coppers at me, swear at me: Get a fockin job. Scounging our taxes. Sewer rat. There are always the odd ones who are sound: I don’t mind a decent chat from time to time. Takes my mind off the cold. But I prefer most of them to just drop the money in the hat and walk away. I’m not in the job for the conversation. If I’d wanted that, I’d have worked in telesales.

   -Um, excuse me, sorry to bother you, but, um, I was wondering if you know somewhere to get something to eat, uh, because there’s a place behind the university…

Like she’s born and bred in Manchester and I’m not, like. I mean, excuse my sarcasm, but I was working these streets before she was sitting her GCSEs. I’m hoping for the last couple of squid to top up the shrapnel in the kitty so I smile and nod.

   -Yeah, I’m alright, cheers love.

   -Um, and you’ve got somewhere to sleep? The Salvation Army hostel is only ten pounds a night…

Is that all? Like they have vacancies anyway: my left arse cheek they have vacancies, and ten pounds a night to get raped up the arse and your stuff nicked or your head kicked in if you’re lucky? Now we’re talking: I can get the same treatment in one of her Majesty’s overnight suites for free. Now I’m beginning to wish the girl would just piss off. She’s putting people off, squatting my pavement space like a free-ad for a non-denominational cult. She means well enough, but we all know that’s a psuedo-compliment, right?

   -Well, so long as you have enough to eat and a place to sleep…

You should see the way she looks at me, like butter won’t melt, but she’s getting this red glow around the old cheeks and it’s spreading. Roll on tenner time…

   -I don’t suppose you’ve got a spare cig?

   -I’m sorry, I don’t smoke- but I do have something for you: will you read this?

 Surprise, surprise. She pulls out a small booklet and hands it over. There’s a whole bunch of them in her pocket. I fantasize briefly about reaching in and evacuating possible banknotes tucked underneath them, her words blurring into the general diesel engine and car-horn chatter.

   -It’s Mark’s Gospel. I just want you to know that Jesus loves you, whoever you are, whatever you’ve done. He forgives all our sins.

   -Good for you. Sin a lot, do you?

Ha, she don’t know what to make of that one. Just looks at me gone out. So I help her out a bit, get the ball rolling on the business front.

   -Well, ‘ave you got some spare change then, love?

   -I’m sorry, I don’t give money to beggars. If you look to the lord for help…

   -Well, has he got some spare change then?

Ha, that got her. Bloody hypocrite. See what I mean? The tightest of ‘em all, the do-gooders.

   -Who, sorry?

   -The lord.

   -Uh, sorry, I don’t understand?

 I can feel myself laughing now. It’s fun to have a laugh with them now and again. Different planet. Different bloody planet.

   -Has the lord got some spare change? Just you said I should ask him, and seeing as you know him so well, I thought you could ask him on my behalf, maybe he gives money to people like me, so he wouldn’t mind lending you a fiver.

I’m getting impatient now. This is prime time. I’ll put it like this: there’s enough circumstantial evidence in this world to give super heavyweight titles to the argument that the lord doesn’t give a shit about people who ask for his help. If his so-called missionaries won’t help when I ask them, either they’ve misunderstood what he instructed them, or he didn’t tell ‘em owt: you decide. Religion’s only useful to those balancing the books. How much could I get for her leaflet down the nearest second hand bookshop, for example? Sweet eff ay. Get my point?

   -Uh, well, every Sunday, we have a service here…

Now she’s getting another booklet out of her pocket and I’m checking for a stray tenner or even a quid slipping out unnoticed, but it’s not my lucky day. She’s showing me an address on its reverse next to a wishy-washy watercolour of a cross, surrounded by white flowers. Funereal if you ask me.

   -The address and times are on the back. We have a morning and an evening service; you’re always very welcome to come and invite all your friends.

Oh yeah, maybe I’ll pop in some time and relieve them of their burden in the form of a few notes from the old silver plate. Last time the lord’s minions helped me to help myself it was from a wooden bowl, else legging it with the whole plate would have been a distinct possibility. Easy work if you can get it. But with clothes like this and the stink on me like a dog that just got out the river, it’ll be eagle eyes all round. Last time I had a go I escaped with a twenty and a grin like a winning politician on election night, but the speed with which I had to scarper hurt like me lungs were on fire. Should quit the smoking really. It don’t help with the choring: can’t run as fast as I used to.

   I’m beginning to feel pretty frayed around the edges. I’m looking at the toecaps of my boots, checking this big rip in the leather where the steel’s showing through. I’m getting tetchy, the pit of my stomach heaving quietly to itself and I’m not in the mood for this shit. If she doesn’t shift soon I’m gonna to get aggro, and that ain’t good for business, but seriously, it’s like going into a brothel and expecting a sports massage on the NHS with some people, eh?

   -Look, love, I appreciate your concern and all that, but I got a job to do ‘ere.

   -Um, well, uh….pause…Um, well, I’m Sue- uh- what’s your name?

   -Danny.

   -Well, Danny, you take care, and take time to real the Gospel…it’s really good, you know…you might be pleasantly surprised.

    -You’ll get a fockin surprise in a minute, love, I think to myself, or do I say it out loud? Either way, she looks a little upset as she gets to her feet, cos when I light the cigarette I got earlier off some Cockney skater, she does these big Princess Di interview eyes at me, looking up and down the street with this scared animal vibe, then back at me. I can almost hear her thinking: how dare he ask me for a cigarette, when he already had one? The cheek of it! Funny, right? I do a lot of imagining what other people are thinking. Not much of it nice.

   -Goodbye, my friend.

   -Yeah, right.

Back to business it is then, and tonight I’m onto a winner after all. The pubs are kicking out, which can mean a number of things, but it’s all good tonight thank fuck, and the quids are flying into the hat and my lucky break comes with the return of the skater who hands me a fiver.

   -Nice one, you sure, like? I ask him, which I immediately regret. Fuckin daft twat I can be, honest: are you sure?  What is it with all this are you sure stuff?

   -No, I’m not sure, now give it us back. Course I’m sure, else I wouldn’t’ve given you it, would I?

See, like I said, there’s sound cunts just like there are daft cunts and evil cunts. So when the last of the drinkers have left the kebab houses with their steaming food parcels, I pull myself up, slowly. Slowly slowly. For fuck sake, it’s painful. My knees have seized up and I can hardly straighten my back. Definitely time to get moving. I take a well deserved stretch which turns out to be painful too, and yawn. What’s up with me and all this stretching and yawning? Right, let’s go: I’m walking faster with every step.

*   *   *

   Tania’s cursing and slamming the receiver of the payphone down repeatedly like she’s trying to tenderise old mutton for the fourth time in a row. Bastard, she’s thinking, switch your fucking phone on. What the fuck’s going on? He’d told her to phone him at eight and he’d have it all bagged up. Now it’s almost midnight. This is taking the piss. Four hours, and by now Adam and Nathan will be long gone and she’ll be stuck all weekend with Hellie. Fuck that for a game of soldiers, no chance. She’s in a rage now, trying to slam the door of the phone box. Frustrated with its slow-closing door mechanism, she gives it a kick, stubbing her toe.

   -Ow, for fuck’s sake!

She’s walking now, then running for the number 47. The driver raises his eyebrows as she flashes her weekly student bus pass.

   -Rushing home through Rusholme love?

God, that joke gets more irritating every time she hears it.

She stomps upstairs to the back, grabbing the cold, chrome bars as she goes, sits on the spring-hard back seat and lights a fag.

*   *   *

   The fuckin lighter ain’t working. I’m not having any of this, I can feel the flint coming loose like it’s about to spring off and it’s times like this when a walk down the road to the garage ain’t the first thing on my mind. Fuck sake, there it goes, landing in no mans’ land. Hang on…I’m remembering now, there’s a box of matches somewhere. Maybe in the kitchen. If you can call it a kitchen. I look around the room, turning over books, trashed drawings, plates, empty baked beans cans. Fuck sake, don’t laugh. Do you see me laughing? If I just shove it all inside this Kwik Save bag I’ll have more chance of finding the matches or even another lighter. Call it tidying up if you like. Fuck sake, there’s so much chaos in here my feet are crunching like the floor’s sandy. Right: wrappers; tins; newspapers; that drawing’s had it; it’s got to go…

   I’m checking the kitchen now. I got this old Calor gas burner off a skip with Spid, and the chest of drawers it’s standing on. Yeah, you guessed, the cylinder’s empty. Yes, I’ve got it. Ha, look, a box of matches inside this pan. Stuck to the side by some cruddy smee, but who cares. Charred stumps, noooo. Hang on, two matches left. I hate using matches but I don’t reckon I have much choice now. Or do I? I light the lighter with the match, which works better. It’s a bit of a bloody fiddle but eventually I’m all sorted and everything’s getting there…

   Fuckin hands shaking like an old alchie with the DTs, swear to god I miss the old times: no rattle, no sweat, no problems finding a route of administration so to speak, ha. Fuck me, there she is, the scarlet in the brown, feel better before it even goes in… the relief ain’t something you can describe unless you’ve got a habit. I breathe in like it’s fresh air in the Blue Mountains, deep and long, and hit home.

   Cushty again. Now I can relax. I’m sitting in this big old armchair, gouching nicely and if I do say so myself it’s about time I sorted out my shit. I got piles of drawings here, half of them all fucked up with black marks and stuff and coffee rings. Then there’s my painting.

   Yeah, I’ll get on with it tomorrow, sort it out, get some stuff sold. Since I was a kid they always told me I had a talent for art. Yeah, it’s pretty good stuff I’ve done, must be able to make a few quid, surely? I should go round the galleries or something. Ha, me, Gary Fitzpatrick, the big talent waiting to be discovered. What a fuckin tragedy. Seriously though, I could do with making something work for a change. Don’t you reckon? Like Moses would say, Lord have mercy!

PART ONE: Squatters’ Rights

 

One

Wet Phosphorus

  

    It’s easy to squeeze through this cellar window, despite its narrowness: she’s done it before. As Tania drops onto bricky rubble below, the dank, familiar smell hits her in the pitch black as she gropes her way across the room, stopping as she hits a stone staircase. Slight, yellow light casts itself down banisterless steps. As she reaches the ground floor, light from the street falls in distorted rectangles onto the floor of the hall from the part-open doors, the musty odour of abandoned buildings hanging in the air. She creeps along uncarpeted boards, clinging to carved banisters, some of which are broken or missing and makes her way up the wooden staircase to the first floor. An empty room gapes at each end of the corridor; two other rooms face her: one, a stagnant bathroom, another a deep pink bedroom with varnished floorboards. Another flight of stairs and she faces a white door upon which is written in solid black marker pen:

THIS ROOM IS OCCUPIED AS OF 17.2.94. PLEASE KNOCK.

There’s a spray-can painting of a punk putting two fingers up on the bottom half of the door as though the artist couldn’t be bothered to stand up to do it, because the top half of the door is white, but for the writing. At the very bottom, a tag’s sprayed in black filled with green: sKaB 9T6.

   There are three keyholes: one, a Yale lock, the other two, mortises. Above, a roof window leaks orange light onto the landing, at the end of which she can see a large attic room with a wide, broken window.

   -Gary, she whispers.

There’s no response. She’s tapping lightly now, putting her ear against the door. Silence. Knocking louder, she’s calling me and stepping away, leaning against the wall. She’s hearing movement, shifting of objects, but she doesn’t know what I’m doing or why. And I know it’s her, but I ask anyway.

   -Yeah, who is it?

I’ve told her never to bring anyone and I know she hasn’t, but I feel the need to ask her if she’s alone. Come on, call me a control freak if you want, but I don’t want no one snooping around, getting ideas, messing up my patch. Before I got this place it wasn’t pretty, trust me, and I want to keep it like this. It might not be your idea of paradise revisited, but it’s better than a kick up the arse and a night behind the Piccadilly Hotel getting the heat from the kitchen vents. Warm enough, but the cooking smell either makes you want to eat or want to puke: either way, I’m happier here and no one messes with me. So here she is. Again.

   I slide the two bolts and turn the two keys and open the door for her. As soon as she’s in, she’s lighting a fag and sitting down on my bed. Anyone might think we were an old couple the way she acts round me these days but that’s never going to happen. She’s looking at the walls like she always does. She spends hours staring at my drawings and she’s always on about them. Here we go, typical Tania conversation as usual. I’ve told you before that I can draw, but some people think they’re a genius when they’re just basically just arrogant and talentless. Maybe I’m talentless, so to avoid being shoved into the first category, I tend to avoid self-inflation.

   -Have you been doing much painting?

I wonder why she always asks this, because the amount of time she spends looking, she should have noticed by now that nothing new’s been stuck up there for some time.

   -Uh, a bit, you know. Haven’t really had the time.

   -You should sell them you know, get them down on decent paper.

   -What?

   -Your pictures. You’re well good, you know that?

See how them compliments roll in? How do I know if she’s just saying they’re good, though? She’s always fishing for something, is Tania. You know how I met her? A nice girl like Tania, hanging around with the likes of me? I was begging in my usual evening spot outside Abduls, when she stopped for a chat. Gave me a full packet of Marlboro Lights and a twenty.

   -What’s that for? I’d asked her. There was something clingy about her. I’d seen her a few times before in the past week. She’d walk past me and give a nice smile and drop a couple of quid in the hat. After a few times, she’d started saying

   -Hi!

Like that, a sort of tinkly, naughty ‘Hi!’ that if it was written down would have one of those yellow smiley faces next to it. Next thing you know it’s the Marlboro fuckin Lights and twenty quid, and it’s not like me to question a twenty quid note being shoved into my hand, but it was loaded. Next thing was the million dollar question:

   -Do you know where I can buy some smack?

And I laughed in her face.

She hadn’t even known what gear was before she met me. Hadn’t smelled it, hadn’t seen it, hadn’t tasted it. I mean, who calls it smack these days? Do they? Don’t start judging me now, will you, eh? Okay, so it was obvious to me that she hadn’t got a habit, but I asked her anyway and she said no, but she used it. So guilt free, okay? I never introduced her to it, ‘someone else did’. Yeah, right. She’s alright though, is Tania. I like her. That first night she’d gone on about her course, how she was only doing it because her mum and dad wanted her to, blah, blah, blah. She’s a posh bird, always got fags, new clothes, money, new hairdos. She’ll lend me money no questions asked and never ask for it back. I wonder sometimes if she keeps a tab of how much I owe her, but she never says owt. And she’s round me now like flies round shit, not that I’m complaining. Shame really: she’s naïve. She’s safer round me than round some of the cunts she could have met first. Yeah, she could have got herself into some real shit if she’d’ve met someone like Lee that night. I’m alright, me, not like some of the cunts out there. Yeah, I look after her really.

   So here she is with her hair all half-short and half-long with blonde bits and a posh frock and she’s telling me to sell my pictures.

   -I sold a few once. Down in Cornwall, I tell her. –Cards and little paintings, to the tourists and that. It’s too bloody cold now, always raining, they’d get wrecked.

She’s got her sympathy face on now. It’s right funny. I reckon some people would call it patronising, but I like it for some reason. Yeah, I like Tania.

   -You could get a pitch in Market Street: you’d sell loads.

Could I? In my humble opinion, I’d do better sticking with grafting like I always did. Days I never sold nothing and had to beg anyway: think of the time wasted when I could have been making money instead.

   -What, and have the pigs hassling me? No chance. I got moved on all the time in Cornwall. You’re meant to have a license, ain’t you? Bastards. Can’t do nothing without getting exploited by rich cunts.

Tania’s face starts glowing now.

   -Not you, love, you’re nice, I reassure her, like she needs reassuring, but there’s something about her that makes me want to reassure her. Like I don’t wanna see her cry. Like she’s got this invisible sign that says FRAGILE.

   -Nice? Ah, thank you, so are you.

   -So gizza cig then Tan.

So she throws us a fag and I break off the filter.

   -Got a light love?

And she throws us a lighter. She might have it back for a bit but when she leaves, it’ll have been converted into my possession.

   -Why d’ you wanna spend all that money on Marlboro Lights anyway? A fag’s a fag, you don’t have to waste your money just to impress the other students. They all smoke them.

   -Ah, but if they really wanna impress the other students, Gaz, they smoke Marlboro reds.

She’s smiling at me, her big green eyes widening as if to emphasise what an important point she’s making. Yeah, like I said, with those eyes, the way she looks, she’s lucky she met me first and not someone like Lee. Seriously. Like the ocean, they are, the fucking Atlantic ocean, all greens and blues with little starry bits and these tiny cute crinkles when she smiles. I’d not say I fancy her cos there’s someone else I like, love; someone I’ve been into for years, ‘cept I’m the only cunt who knows. Unless she’s psychic, that is. Women seem to know things before you tell them, female intuition and all that. No, I’m not interested in Tania, not like that. Tell the truth, even the girl I’m into probably wouldn’t be speaking to me if she knew my private thoughts. That’s probably why I haven’t told her. Ruin the friendship shit like that does, right?

   -Don’t you ever just wanna get away, Gaz? Why did you come back up here if you were living in Cornwall?

   - The winters are freezing. Like fockin Scandanavia. Anyway, apart from that, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you some other time.

   -No, tell me now, I want to know.

That’s the thing with Tania, she always wants to know now or go now or smoke now. And she always wants to know.

   -Alright, alright. When I was living down in Cornwall…you know Spid, right?

   -Him with the huge Alsatian?

   -Skinner. Yeah. Well, we were living in this bus. He got this ex-GM bus in some auction- did it up really nice- we used to park it up down this place near St Ives, Godrevy point I think it’s called, something like that. They’ve got these random fields up on the cliffs near this lighthouse. It’s beautiful. Used to wake up and see the sun rise up over the ocean; well, it ain’t gonna rise down, is it?

   -No, that’s a sunset.

   -Rise down...but they were beautiful too. Blue skies; perfect, long waves. Gorgeous.

   -So what are you back here for then?

   -Wait, I’m telling yer. Used to wake up and find parking fines stuck to the windscreen. Ignored them. Well, you do. And Spid ain’t got no tax or insurance. He probably ain’t got no MOT neither but who’s askin’? It’s just robbery, all that. I mean, it works, he can drive the thing: it’s his fuckin house, right? You live like that to get away from all that shit. We were kids, really, just trying to be free. We go for a surf one day-

Tania’s laughing at me now, her eyes open wider than ever, her mouth gaping like she’s gonna start dribbling any minute and I can see her fillings are gold, not your usual skanky grey stuff that tastes of metal.

   -You went surfing!

   -What’s so funny about that?

She shakes her head and just smiles to herself in amusement.

   -Nothing, really, it’s just you don’t look like the surfy type.

I raise my eyes to the ceiling.

   -Why, cos I ain’t got shoulder-length bleach-blonde hair and a Mambo T-shirt?

   -Something like that. Tell me more, surfer boy, hahaha, you, surfing, that’s funny.

She’d go into paroxysms of laughter in those days, sometimes I really thought she’d pissed herself for real when she got like that. I just dismiss it and keep talking over her squeals and giggles and eventually she calms down.

   -Anyway, we get back and the bus is gone.

   -No!

   -Yeah, I thought I was tripping for a minute, but it’s definitely gone. We’ve been stopping in that spot two weeks, is all…no one to be seen. Left standing in our wetsuits.

She’s squeeling and giggling again and red as a poppy on Armistice Day. If I was arrogant, I’d say it was a good story, but she’d laugh at anything back then.

   -What did you do?

Forcing the words out between emphysemic wheezes now: seeing her laugh, you’d think it was comedy night at the Apollo, only with a comedian who’s actually funny.

   -Had to borrow some clothes off this bloke we knew in Hayle. It’s a right schlep from where we were; we looked like right wankers.

   -What about the bus?

   -Pigs robbed it. They’d rather see you on the streets than evading their taxes. Robbing bastards.

   -That’s well out of order.

Tania lights another fag and chucks one over to us. She’s gone all sombre now. Changeable as the wind, she is, like smoke from a campfire, blowing in your eyes one minute and in someone else’s the next.

   -Gary, have you got any gear?

Has this girl got chutzpah or what? I guess it’s her who should be saying that about me, but it goes both ways. Yeah, it always goes both ways in this life.

   -Talk about robbing bastards…

   -Nah- seriously…

See, I told you, she’s always fishing for something.

   -There’s a bit left in that bag.

(Yeah, Tania, that bag you’ve been eyeing up the whole time, yeah, that one…nothing left in it to feel anything anyway and I’ve been out grafting since early this morning, so everything’s sorted, and I’ll ask you to sort us for tomorrow: everyone’s happy, right?) She makes a grab for it with an excited little look on her face. Grinning like a cat.

   -Cheers Gaz, seriously, that arsehole Lee wouldn’t answer his phone. Had it switched off all night. He knew I wanted to score, the bastard.

   -You shouldn’t be doing that shit, you know.

  -What, so it’s alright for you to do it, but not me?

   -You know what I mean.

Does she? Does she really know what I mean? I’m not one to lecture, though. What’s the point? So I pick up a pile of my drawings and start looking through them to take my mind off the whole scenario. Things I’ve seen, this pales in comparison, so I’ll let it go. She’s tutting to herself and rolling her tinfoil so she can have a toot.

   -Since when have you been my mother?

So she empties the little bit from the bag onto her tinfoil square and holds her lighter to its underside, letting the melted brown roll down its length, sucking up that sweet smoke like her life depends on not wasting a wisp. Fucking waste.

   -Alright?

   -Mmmmm…

Fuck me, those were the days, eh?

Tania lays down on the bed, arching her back and closes her eyes.

*   *   *

   It’s rained in the night. Pools of wet mix with last autumn’s fallen leaves, merging into a slippery sludge in the gutters. A car horn sounds below. Tania searches for her bag on the floor, knocking over a pan of last night’s vomit which leaves a crusted circle of yellow where the sick has dried to its sides overnight. Retching, she mops it up with a handful of pages from the Metro News, watching the chunks lodge themselves in the grooves between the floorboards before she crams the crumpled sick paper into the pan.  She picks up her bag, wiping her hands on a photo of a fat white man in a suit with the bold caption of Praise for Local Councillor in Refuse Site Bid. The car horn sounds again. She thinks I’m still asleep as she picks her way across the room to the door and unfastens the two heavy-duty bolts and unlocks the mortises.

   -Wait-

I’m laying in a pool of cold sweat that’s not easy, my eyes crusty and watering, bones, back and belly aching like I’ve been flogged half to death and skewered through the intestines.

   -Gotta go, cab’s waiting.

I fuckin hate these shakes. Rattling like a cunt. Every morning it’s the same but I’m safe. If I hadn’t been lucky last night I’d have to get up and go out like this.

   -Yeah, uh, Before you go, you couldn’t lend us a tenner til I get paid? Please?

It’s not like me to say please, but I look at her with my best sad puppy look. I know my pupils are gaping, and she can see the state I’m in. I don’t get some people, cos surely she don’t wanna end up like this, but I understand her too. When it happens, okay, if it happens, she won’t even notice. But I’ve seen that look in her eyes when she’s wanting something; know what I mean? Lady H has got under her skin alright. That’s just my professional opinion and if she don’t believe me, that’s not my problem, capice? She fumbles in her bag, the taxi driver below beeping again, and chucks me over a crumpled note.

   -Til Wednesday, Right? Cheers Tan, you’re a fockin lifesaver.

She reaches over and gives us a hug, which hurts, and a kiss on the cheek, which stings, and stinks of puke.

   -Take care of you, surfer boy, she smiles and winks, giggling a bit. A bit hazybrained still from the night before.

   -Yeah, you too, and clean yourself up, you stink of puke

Before she’s even out the door, I uncrumple the note to find a twenty, instead of a ten. Yeah, I like Tania, she’s a good lass for sure.

   It half kills me to get up and lock the door behind me, but I don’t have the choice. Door’s gotta be locked at all times, can’t get complacent…at least I don’t have to go out right now. Stinks of puke in here as well. I’m sniffing around to see where the fuck she’s vomited this time. There it is, a wet patch on the floor, fuck sake. I’m gonna buy that girl a bucket if it’s the last thing I do for her…the rank, acidic stench makes me gip and I nearly cover her wet patch with my own vom when I see the yellowish-brown matter lodged in the cracks and the sick pan…. my guts churn in the freezing cold as I hurry back to the bed, lift up the mattress and find my stash.

   Chunks of semi-damp phosphorus skit across the room as I try to light the last match, before I remember Tania’s lighter. She might chuck up on me floor and wipe it up with the crossword but I have to give thanks to her. As I suck the luscious brown fluid into this seven-times-used pin, I could kick myself for not getting any clean ones, it’s hard enough finding a vein as it is without this blunt piece of fuckery.

   God, I relish these moments. It’s beyond relief: it’s my fuckin sustenance. I sling the scavvy old pin in the grate. It’s cold enough in here to store frozen turkeys without them thawing. Damp’s clinging to the place, bringing pieces of plaster off the ceiling and bubbling the paint off the walls. With this twenty of Tania’s and the fiver I’ve got left over, I can score myself a teenth. Or get two bags and some coal. Come on, what would you choose? Could go skipping, get some wood for nothing. Wet wood, huh, but there’s plenty of newspaper here. I check my coat pockets and grab my money bag, and out falls that religious leaflet with an empty Rizla packet. By the time I’ve rolled a cig from the crumbs in the bottom of this Dutch Samson packet, I’ve got a plan. I start gathering the general squalour and chuck it bit by bit into the grate without regard to its toxicity: at least plastic bags get wood burning, and it won’t be the first time I’ve broken up and burnt some of the old bits and pieces the students left behind before this place got condemned by the council. Unfit for human habitation. If this is unfit, there’s plenty places worse, but I don’t see no one finding alternative accommodation for them that live there, or exist there, cos the last time I saw the inside of a nice, cosy living room…well, I won’t go into that.

   So everything goes on, from stale chip wrappers to empty yogurt pots, curry house menus, Manchester Evening Newses at various stages of decomposition, club flyers, emptied fag ends (even the re-rolls get re-rolled eventually) blood-encrusted pins and crumpled bog roll, empty match boxes. I weigh up the options of lighting this now and going to find stuff to burn from around the rest of the house or vice versa, or just burning this and going out. Ah, fuck it, I think, getting the lighter and…empty. I flick and flick the mechanism until my thumb’s nearly raw and the sodding flint does one just like the last. Well thank fuck it lasted this long: always gotta think of the positive, eh?

   Outside my door, drips fall from the skylight and run down the walls, following the tracks of the black mildew that peppers the peeling woodchip. The walls are dank with condensation from which small puddles form on the landing, trickling down the first few stairs. Come Manchester monsoon and it’ll be Viagra fuckin falls. So fuckin dark in this place. The tree outside the window’s so tall it’s probably mining the foundations of the big, old house and it’s leafing up now, so it won’t be much lighter in the summer. If I last that long here.

   I’m coughing up phlegm as I head down the stairs and into the biting chill of the morning.

*   *   *

   As soon as Tania walks through the front door, there’s Hellie, with a cheerful TV grin on her face like she thinks she’s stepped out of Home and Away. She’s in her white fluffy dressing gown and teddy bear slippers, fish-slice in hand, frying bacon. The cheerful tone of her greeting precipitates in Tania a deep, laboured yawn.

   -Oooh, so where were you last night?

   -What’s that supposed to mean?

Tania’s sick of insinuations of secret boyfriends and mysterious lovers. Yeah, she’d love to see the look on Hellie’s face if she knew where she’d really been, what a picture that’d be. You could put it on You’ve Been Framed and watch repeats without ever getting bored, she’s thinking to herself.

   -Adam and Nathan were round asking where you’d got to. Seemed a tad annoyed that you hadn’t shown. You were supposed to meet them in Jabez Clegg at nine.

   -I was at a friend’s house. He was having a bit of trouble.

   -Oooh, he, eh? Mum’s the word. Hellie winks and goes back to frying her bacon –Well, I told them you’d call when you got in, okay?

   -Yeah, cheers.

   -Who’s this mystery bloke, then?

   -A mate, I told you.

   -Mmmmm, in the mating sense?

   -Just a friend, Hellie.

   -So how come you were with him all night, then?

   -Leave it out will you, Dad!

Tania watches as Hellie pushes the plunger down on the cafetiere. Always twenty questions with Hellie, but she makes good coffee.

   -Okay, but when we finally get to meet your mystery man, tell him I cook a very nice spag bol and you’re all invited, okay? I will personally cook for you and provide the wine, just for the chance to meet him! Is he older? Is that it? Is he older? Tania, he’s not married, is he?

Bless her heart, honestly, she’s worse than the Australian soaps she’s addicted to, thinks Tania, but she’s so, so off the mark.

   -No, Hellie, he’s not married, he doesn’t have kids and I’m NOT SEEING HIM, OKAY?

   -Okay, I’ll take your word for it, but I don’t believe you. You’re in love: it’s written all over your face. Would you like some breakfast? There’s enough for two here.

   -Just a coffee, thanks.

   -See, lost your appetite as well…missing him already.

She just shakes her head and sighs as Hellie pours two huge cupfuls, topping them up with frothed milk and sprinkling chocolate powder from a specially designed shaker.

   -Ah, wicked, cheers Hel.

Tania sits down at the high real wood counter and lights a cigarette. She inhales deeply, blowing the smoke out across the room in one smooth action as Hellie sits opposite with her breakfast, sprinkling salt and grinding pepper over fried tomatoes, egg, sausages, hash browns, mushrooms and bacon. For a student house, this is the Ritzy end of the market. No en suites, granted, but it’s all been refurbished over the summer vacation, not like some of the places her friends rent in the high Victorian terraces on Furness Road, with leaky roofs and clattering kitchen units and dripping taps. Fifteen rooms, there are, in Adam’s shared house, big old rooms carved up with plywood petitions to make poky little dossers, each complete with its own melamine wardrobe in a selection of chipped off-white or dark woodgrain effect, doors missing or flapping. Where the nice, comfy beds should be are a choice of fleapits, collapsed, broken-springed divans and palliasses, crammed into spaces so small there’s barely room to stand, and no desk. Adam works flopped on his so-called bed, resting on a ring binder to study. So, as Tania sits with her housemate to share curls of bacon fat (the only part she’ll eat), she wonders how people can put up with such filthy, squalid conditions, and vows never to be poor.

  

   Upstairs, she puts a fresh mug of coffee on the side of the bath, running the water hot and adding loads of Matey Bubbles. It makes her smile, looking at the pink, girlie bottle designed to look like a mermaid. Smells different from the one she remembers using as a kid, the blue sailor smelling of hyacinths. She doesn’t understand why, but last time she bought the blue one it just made her cry and cry in the bath, so she never bought it again. So much for no more tears, eh? She wedges her bedroom door open, puts on a Kid Loops CD and undresses, wrapping herself in a towel. Picks out clean underwear, tight, black kamo pants and a close fitting black jumper, upping the volume enough so she’ll hear it in the bath. Everyone’s out at lectures and Hellie’s just left for her ten o’clock, so Tania’s free to wander around naked if she wants. And why not? This body won’t last, might as well try to enjoy it for all its cellulite and flab. She’s been told she’s fit, got a beautiful body more than twice, not that she particularly believes it, but yeah, she’s young and age won’t improve it. Quality of life, eh? Quality of life…

   She’s got a bit of weed in her knicker drawer she’s been saving, so she rolls a spliff, grabs her half-bottle of Captain Morgan to top up her coffee and returns to the bathroom. As she steps into the bath, the heat cuts into her foot. She’s sipping on the bottle now, turning on the cold tap…have a taste before she sloshes it into the coffee, why not? She’ll try calling Lee again when she gets out of the bath. Might go shopping later with that new Visa card as well; get something half-decent to wear for tonight. Stakki Kays is playing Dread-Rock tonight down PSV’s and she’s definitely gonna be there.


 © Vee 1993-2012