Bucket Nut (11 page)

‘Couldn't it wait for tomorrow?' I asked.

‘Gotta lil job fewva,' Mr Cheng said.

‘You need money, don't you Eva?' said Auntie Lo.

Suddenly Mr Cheng pointed a bony finger at me and rattled off something which started, ‘few din cummy nastra…'

It took me a minute to work it out, and then I said, ‘I didn't even
see
the Astra. I came in another car which … belongs to someone else.'

Mr Cheng seemed to be obsessed with his Astra.

‘Anyway,' I went on, because I'd had a thought. ‘Your bloke Kenny must still have the keys, so unless you've got a spare set I can't very well pick the Astra up.'

‘Hah!' said Mr Cheng.

All four of them chewed on some more silence and I shifted from one foot to the other. I was tired. I wanted to go home. I didn't want to explain about Kenny or the VW. I thought I'd got out of it rather well, but I didn't want to be at the Beijing Garden when the two skinny guys came back from the hospital.

All at once Mr Cheng, Auntie Lo and the other two started talking to each other. They talked for about ten minutes while I just stood there. It wasn't very polite.

Then Mr Cheng said, ‘Way touside, Eva.'

And Auntie Lo said, ‘Don't go away, Eva. We'll need you in a minute.'

So I went outside and sat on a chair in the passage. After a while a bloke came up from downstairs and brought me a cup of green tea and a bowl of prawn crackers which made me feel a bit better. But I still wasn't very happy about being there. I should have been back at the yard with Goldie and the dogs. I was afraid Goldie would be worried.

‘Listen to me, Eva,' said Auntie Lo. ‘This is important.'

She was alone in Mr Cheng's office, which was surprising because I hadn't seen Mr Cheng and the other two come out.

‘Where's Mr Cheng?' I asked.

‘Eva!' said Auntie Lo. ‘You must listen.'

‘OK.' But I was puzzled because I couldn't see a door except the one I had used.

‘This is a very important little job,' she said. ‘It's because Kenny is in hospital. If not, he would do it. See?'

‘Yeah.' I did feel bad about Kenny. The nurse in Casualty told me he had several cracked ribs, and I think she said he had a bruised lung, but I couldn't be quite sure. Anyway it sounded painful.

‘It wasn't my fault,' I said.

‘Don't you want to help Mr Cheng?' Auntie Lo asked. She looked so Auntyish in her pleated skirt and grey woolly. I looked at her feet and sure enough she was wearing pink dancing shoes.

‘Of course I want to help,' I said.

‘Good,' she said. ‘Mr Cheng wants you to deliver a package.'

‘OK.'

‘It is important. It is important that nobody sees. For your protection.'

‘Mine?' I said. Auntie Lo was not smiling, and I wished she would make her joke about finding me a husband instead of talking about how important it all was.

‘I like you, Eva,' she said. ‘Mr Cheng trusts you. We do not wish to get you into trouble.'

‘I don't mind a bit of trouble.' I suddenly felt very happy.

‘We mind. So you must be very careful. The package is for Mr Aycliffe. He is expecting it. But there are two things.' She held up two fingers. ‘Two important things. One – you must
not
be seen giving it to him. Two – you must not see his face.'

‘Why?'

‘Mr Aycliffe is being watched by the police. They wish to catch him and put him in prison. We do not want this to happen. Mr Aycliffe is a good man who has made some mistakes but he does not deserve prison. This arrangement will protect you, and it will protect Mr Aycliffe.'

‘Oh,' I said. She gave me a moment to think about it. Then I said, ‘How can I give Mr Aycliffe a package if I can't see him?'

‘We have thought a lot about this, Eva. And we have a plan. Mr Aycliffe works at a club near the Harrow Road. You know the Harrow Road, Eva?'

‘Yeah.'

‘There is a front entrance – which you do
not
use. You do not use front door, Eva. Right?'

‘Right.'

‘You use kitchen door.'

‘Kitchen door. Right.'

‘The door will be open, but there will be no one in the kitchen.'

‘How do you know there won't be anyone in the kitchen.'

Auntie Lo looked at her watch. ‘Too late,' she said. ‘Kitchen closed. Only drinks served from bar. Mr Aycliffe has told us this.'

I should have thought of that. By most people's reckoning it was nearly morning. Late night clubs were different.

‘This package,' Auntie Lo went on, ‘is in a Safeway carrier bag. To look like rubbish, Eva. You walk into kitchen. You will see another door. Through that door is passage. In passage is where they put the empties. All crates, bottles, other rubbish. You put the Safeway bag with this other rubbish, Eva. You got that?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Then you walk out. When club closes it is Mr Aycliffe's job to take out rubbish. See?'

‘Oh, I get it,' I said. ‘He takes out the rubbish and takes the package at the same time. And no one will know a thing about it.'

‘That is correct. I see you got brains too, Eva. Not just a pretty face.' Auntie Lo suddenly started her huff-huff laughter. And that made me laugh too. It was one of her jokes. I know for a fact that neither Auntie Lo nor Mr Cheng think I'm very smart. It's because
they are Chinese, and as everyone knows Chinese people are very smart indeed.

So I didn't mind very much when Auntie Lo went through all her instructions again. She practically drew me a map of how to get to the kitchen of Mr Aycliffe's place. Then she let me go.

It was a funny time of night – not many people on the streets. Just one or two rolling home, one or two still looking for somewhere to score and one or two off to work on the early shift. Normally I like being out and about when it's halfway between late and early. But this time I was a bit strung out. I was worried about Goldie and I was worried about Auntie Lo's package. Also, I was being followed. I drove in the VW but I noticed two Chinese blokes not far behind in Mr Cheng's Rover.

It was just like Mr Cheng to give me a job and then send someone along to make sure I did it right. But it made me tense all the same.

Mostly, when people give you instructions about how to get somewhere they make a mistake or they leave something out. Auntie Lo made no mistakes and she left nothing out. That's how smart she is – everything was exactly the way she said it would be.

The place looked like a shebeen from the front. It was in a broken down row of buildings and there was music coming from the open door. I drove past and turned the corner.

The kitchen door was old and wooden, but it was covered with locks and bolts. The back street looked as if it needed all the locks and bolts you could throw at it. There were broken windows and doors with kicked in panels and houses I knew without looking were filled with dossers.

But inside the kitchen it smelled of onions and chillis and it wasn't all that dirty even though they had left a lot of washing up in the sink.

The music was very loud so nobody could have heard me come in. I went over to the door opposite and opened it slowly. The passage was just what I was expecting. It wasn't lit, but coloured lights spilled through the doors to the bar and dance floor. I saw all the empty bottles and crates stacked to one side. I put the Safeway carrier bag on top of them.

I should have left straight away but I couldn't resist having a gander through the bar door to see if I could spot Mr Aycliffe.

I pushed the door open just a crack. The music was deafening. At first
all I could see was a few people dancing and a few people drinking. And then I noticed that one of the dancers was Calvin. Goldie's loverboy, the Lord of the Trousers. He was dancing with an absolutely gorgeous lady. She looked totally wigged-out and she was hanging round his neck like a garland of flowers, but you could see from the shape of her and the way other men watched her that she was absolutely gorgeous.

Poor Goldie. It made me want to hang the bleeding snot-gobbler from the light bulb and swing on his feet. I mean, what right did a little turd like that have to mess with a nice woman's affections? Especially when she was a friend of mine.

Another time I might have steamed in and sorted him out. But now I was under orders to be invisible – although why anyone would pick me for that when I'm one of the most visible women I know, was a mystery. When I thought about it I realised that, of course, it wasn't me they'd picked. They had picked Kenny. And Kenny, if my experience of not seeing him was anything to go by, was about as visible as the Holy Ghost.

I sneaked a last quick look at Calvin and his luscious lady. If he was a woman, I thought, they'd probably call him a slag. As it was they would call her a slag and him a stud and it just wasn't fair. All that man-woman stuff really gets up my nose. I'm glad I'm not involved.

Leaving the music and the coloured lights behind I crossed the passage and went back into the kitchen. It was time to make a quick exit. But when I got to the kitchen door I found I couldn't open it.

I pushed, and I rattled the handle, and I put my shoulder to it but the door was stuck fast.

‘Shit a bus,' I said out loud. Because if I couldn't get through the kitchen door I would have to go out through the bar and then everyone would see me – including Calvin who might recognise me from Bermuda Smith's club. And then Mr Cheng and Auntie Lo would be peeved and perhaps they wouldn't give me any more work. You have to do what you are told and be reliable or they don't trust you.

There was one small window, but there were bars across it. The bars wouldn't budge an inch when I heaved on them. The only hope was the door.

I went back to it and tried again. I hauled up on the handle in case the bottom was jammed. It wasn't.

I was sweating like live pork in a sauna. I couldn't understand what was happening. The door had opened so easily when I went in. Everything had gone according to plan. How could such a cock-up happen at the last minute?

It was stupid. It was only a door.

I backed away. Took a run. And hit the door near the lock with a drop-kick. This was a dodgy move. With flying kicks you can land on your arse if you get it wrong. But I heard something splinter.

I picked myself up and tried the handle again. This time it felt looser.

I backed off again and took a longer run. I hit the door perfectly just below the handle. There was a tearing sound of rotten wood splitting, and the door popped open. Thank the Lord for a good pair of boots.

Outside, I closed the door as best I could. And … well … it is hard to describe what happened next. It was like a dream.

You see, I had just found out why the door wouldn't open, when this thing happened.

The kitchen wall exploded.

It did.

It just flew outwards. One minute it was a wall, and the next minute it was bricks and mortar flying through the air.

The door fell on me.

I remember thinking what a waste of effort it was kicking it open, when it was going to fall over anyway.

I swear I didn't black out, but when I opened my eyes, both me and the door were in the middle of the road yards away from the kitchen and I couldn't remember how we got there.

The funny thing was that I did not hear a thing.

I just saw the wall come apart. And the door fell on me. That's all.

It was like a dream.

It was so weird I actually thought I
was
dreaming. Really dreaming.

You know those dreams where you have to get home? You
must
get home but you don't know the way because you don't know where you are now.

Well it was like that.

I got up. There was rubble all over the street. There were flames and smoke. There were one or two people moving very slowly.

I walked away. I thought, ‘I'm dreaming about the war.'

I remember seeing a car bent in half. And another one with a table poking through the windscreen.

But I just walked away because I thought I was dreaming about the war and I had to get home. I couldn't hear anything, so it had to be a dream. Right?

I just sort of floated away. I couldn't hear anything and I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't even feel my feet on the pavement. That is what dreams are like.

There was a woman in the gutter, stark naked and covered in blood. She had bits of glass sticking out of her skin. Her mouth was wide open, as if she was screaming. But I couldn't hear her so I floated on by.

Because it was a dream, see, a dream about the war, and I had to go home.

Waking up hurt. There was a ditch with a clay bottom. It was all wet. I was in the ditch. I was all wet and cold.

It was dawn.

I thought, ‘This isn't home.'

But in a way it
was
home. Or rather, it was a place I lived in about a year ago. Actually, it was a place I slept in when I was living rough. But they tore it down. They were going to build luxury flats there but the money ran out and all they had done was dig the foundations.

I was lying in the foundations. My head hurt. My teeth hurt. My skin hurt.

My lovely leather jacket was in tatters and I only had half a T-shirt. My jeans were shredded from the crotch down, and one boot was missing.

I sort of remembered what had happened, but only in the way you remember dreams. Bits of it kept slipping away.

But I was in a real ditch. I was real. And I can tell you for free I had a real earache.

‘Chin up, Eva,' I said out loud.

I heaved myself out of the ditch, and I felt very weak and wobbly. Everything hurt so much I nearly threw up. But I am big and strong and mean and tough – well, I was before that door fell on me – so I started to hobble off home.