Bucket Nut (20 page)

‘At some length,' she said.

‘Well I found him while I was looking for Eva. He is a light middleweight wrestler.'

‘I suppose she's a wrestler too.'

‘Yeah,' I said. ‘I am, actually.'

That shut her up. She looked totally blown.

‘She's perfect,' Dave de Lysle said. It was the second time he'd said that but I still couldn't get used to the idea.

I must have smirked or something because all of a sudden she stood up and said, ‘Well if she's perfect I must be in the wrong place. I must really be in the way.' And she stormed out of the room.

‘Sorry,' Dave de Lysle said to me. ‘I'm most awfully sorry.' And he rushed out after her. Which was a pity. I wanted to see how he was going to get out of that one.

I tiptoed over to the door and put my ear against it but I couldn't hear anything much. People with superior educations seem to fight in whispers which is no bleeding fun at all.

I went over to the big old settee and sat down.

So, the artist dweeg and Wendy long-neck were up to a little back-seat leg-over. That was nice to know. Maybe they weren't so superior after all. It made me feel a bit less knotted.

It was warm. The food felt nice and heavy in my belly. The cushions were soft.

I heard a swoosh of wind and rain on the windowpane. But it was behind thick velvet curtains, and it seemed a long way away. I wasn't out in it so it didn't matter.

‘Rain on somebody else,' I said to myself.

The next thing I knew there was music playing. I opened my eyes.

‘Don't move,' Dave de Lysle said.

I couldn't see him. He was somewhere off to the side.

‘Go back to sleep,' he said. ‘I'm drawing.'

I closed my eyes and drifted away again. But I didn't quite go back to sleep.

And then I thought, he's drawing me. But he hasn't paid. And my eyes popped open again.

‘You haven't paid,' I said.

‘What?'

‘Money.'

‘Oh,' he said. ‘Hold on a minute.'

Well, he had a whole house to himself. Money wouldn't mean much.

I sat up.

‘Damn,' he said, but he kept on drawing.

It was like stealing really – him drawing me without my say-so, and me asleep and all.

‘That's stealing,' I said.

‘What?' He looked sort of vague and blurry.

‘You said you'd pay. Where's the money?'

He stopped drawing and stared at me. It was like he was coming back into the room.

He said, ‘But I gave you a ham sandwich.'

‘Right,' I said. ‘You did. I asked for it and you gave it me. Thanks very much. I didn't pinch it off you while you were asleep.'

‘Oh,' he said. ‘I see.' He began to laugh.

‘Funny, am I?' I got to my feet.

‘No, no,' he said. ‘Not funny. Logical.'

‘That's me,' I said. ‘Logical.' It was a funny word and I started to laugh too.

‘What's the music?' I asked.

‘Miles Davis. You said you had a business proposition. Let's hear it.'

A business proposition? I did say that, didn't I? I rubbed my eyes. I felt a bit strange and tired.

‘Well, it's like this,' I began. But I didn't know how to go on because it seemed too complicated to explain to a stranger. So I opened the kit bag and fished the solicitor's letter out for him to see.

‘It's about my sister,' I explained. ‘They talk about a child. She's my sister, Simone.'

He frowned while he was reading.

‘But this was written years ago,' he said when he finished.

‘Yeah, but I only just got hold of it. My Ma kept it.'

‘So what do you want?'

‘I want to find my sister. See, I always thought, you know, she'd get in touch. I always thought one day she'd just come back. But she ain't. And I thought maybe I'd better go looking.'

He looked at me and then he read the letter again.

I said, ‘I can't talk to solicitor people, can I? Well, I can talk to them but I won't get piss-pudding out of them. People like that don't like people like me.'

‘You want me to talk to the solicitors?'

‘Yeah.' You had to explain everything to this geezer.

He seemed to be reading the letter all over again.

I said, ‘I mean, you're a really well-spoken bloke.' I thought he needed some encouragement.

‘Thanks,' he said. But he sounded like he was thinking of something else.

‘Did they adopt her in the end?' he asked. ‘These people she was fostered to, the Redmans?'

‘Dunno,' I said. And I suddenly felt very choked. ‘Nobody told me nothing.'

‘So she might be Simone Wylie or she might be Simone Redman.'

‘She wouldn't change her name,' I said, narked. ‘Look, all you got to do is talk to the fucking solicitors and get the fucking foster-parents' address off of them. Then I can go round there and sort it out.'

‘Mmm,' he said. And do you know, he sounded just like Goldie when he said it.

I snatched the letter out of his hand. ‘If you don't want to, open your mouth and say so,' I said. ‘Just don't piss me around. It's only a bleeding telephone call.'

‘Oh, I'll do it,' he said.

‘You will?'

‘Of course. But it might be a little more complicated than you think and I can't promise to get the information you want.'

‘But you'll try?'

‘Yes.'

‘Swear?'

‘I swear,' he said, really serious.

‘All right then.' I gave him back the letter. ‘You can start drawing your picture again.'

‘Is that it?' he asked. ‘You'll model for me if I phone the solicitor?'

‘Yeah,' I said. He wasn't very quick, was he?

‘When?'

‘Now,' I said. ‘What're you waiting for?'

‘Nothing,' he said. ‘What have you got on under your sweatshirt?'

‘Another sweartshirt and a couple of T-shirts and a singlet.'

‘Good grief,' he said.

‘Cold night,' I explained. He really was a bit slow.

‘Strip down to the singlet,' he said. ‘You'll be warm enough in here.'

‘You ain't going to do anything rude?'

‘Rude?' he said. ‘I promise I won't do anything rude. But it's you I want to draw, not your laundry.'

So I stripped down to the singlet. And I took off my shoes and socks and track bottoms and leggings. But I kept my knickers on. I mean, how much is one bleeding telephone call worth? I ask you.

‘Just stand,' he said. ‘Weight on both legs. Let your arms hang.'

So I stood. I stood for over an hour. I stood facing him. I stood sideways on to him. I stood with my back to him. And let me tell you, posing for an artist sucks. Being stared at ain't my idea of a fun Friday night out, and my legs started aching after only ten minutes. I never would've thought standing still could be so tiring – but it is. And if you know an artist-dweeg who wants to do drawings of you, take my advice and tell him to cock off. It's a totally pillocky occupation, believe me.

When I was practically ready to tip over he suddenly said, ‘Okay, take five. Would you like a cup of tea?'

Would I? I didn't know whether to kiss him or throttle him. I was that boneless.

When he came in with the tea I was lying on my back with my feet up on the arm of the sofa.

I said, ‘How much is standard rates?' And then I said, ‘No don't tell me, it can't be enough.'

He said, ‘You're right. People think modelling's easy. It isn't. It's a hard job, especially if you aren't used to it.'

He poured the tea. Did I tell you he had very nice hands? Well he did. When he was drawing his hands looked sort of useful. The rest of him might look twizzockish but his hands were useful.

He stirred sugar into my cup and said, ‘If I don't get any satisfaction from those solicitors, you know who you should ask?'

‘Who?'

‘That private detective.'

‘What private detective?'

‘Anna Lee,' he said.

‘Never heard of her.'

‘Didn't she find you? She was looking for that blonde friend of yours.'

I would've sat up but I was too weary. ‘Her?' I said. ‘She's polizei.'

‘What?'

‘She's a copper.'

‘No,' he said. ‘She told me she was a private detective.'

‘You
believed
her?'

‘Well, yes,' he said. ‘That night when there was all that trouble at the club, the police were there, and when the smoke cleared they questioned everyone who was left. They questioned her along with everyone else.'

‘They did?' That was a new one. Polizei grilling polizei. ‘Her with the lamppost up her back?' I asked, to be sure we were talking about the same one.

‘She
is
very upright, isn't she?'

‘Yeah,' I said. I would have to think about it. I don't like being wrong about stuff like that.

‘She came to talk to me the next day. Apparently she had seen you and me in conversation at the bar earlier on. She thought I knew you.'

‘But you didn't.'

‘I told her to ask Harry. He seemed to know you.'

‘That was you, was it?' I was too tired to be really narked, but he had to be told. ‘Look,' I said, ‘you better sew your yapper up with string. You don't go round telling strangers where to find people. You don't
dob off on people you don't know, or them same people might stuff your yapper full of your own feet.'

He just blinked at me. He was about as bright as a twenty-five watt light bulb.

‘Don't worry,' I said. ‘I couldn't stuff a chicken at the moment. Got any more tea?'

He poured and we drank in silence.

Then he said, ‘All the same, she knows how to find people.'

‘She didn't do too good on Goldie.'

‘Not yet, maybe. But she'd know how to find someone who'd perhaps changed her name.'

‘I'm telling you,' I said, ‘Simone wouldn't change her name.'

‘All right, all right,' he said. ‘Forget I mentioned it.'

He picked up his drawing book and pencil. ‘Stay still,' he said, ‘just the way you are. That's magnificent.'

He stopped yapping and starting drawing again and I was ever so chuffed that he didn't make me stand up because I was really butchered and I don't think I could've stood up unless someone pinned me to the wall with a nine inch spike.

When I woke up next, there I was on the sofa with my feet up. I hadn't moved a muscle, only someone had covered me with a blanket. There was a small lamp left on in the corner and I could see without moving my head that the clock on the shelf said it was seven o'clock.

I got up and climbed into my clothes. I couldn't quite credit the fact that I'd spent all night in my underwear. And half the night with some stranger staring at me. Dave de Lysle was a very weird man but he seemed harmless enough.

I slid around very quietly and found the kitchen. There was all sorts of food in there but most of it looked like hayseed, so I cut myself another big slice of his fruit cake and shoved a banana in my pocket. Then I went out.

The milkman had already come and left a couple of bottles on the doorstep. I drank half a pint of milk to wash down the cake.

Dave de Lysle probably thought he had got the best of the bargain – loads of time to draw his pictures for one little phone call. But look at it this way – I got supper, breakfast, and a warm bed for the night, so you tell me, who was the winner? All that, for just monging around in my singlet and knickers. What a steal!

About fifty yards down the road I found a nice old Volvo estate just begging to be borrowed which took care of transport back to the yard. I ate the banana in the car and whistled along with the radio as I drove. I was whistling because I felt good. I felt good because the banana was ripe and sweet – neither hard nor mushy. And I sort of felt I was in the clear. Last night I had taken care of business with Mr Cheng, and I did not think he would turf me up with the polizei. Say what you want about blokes like Mr Cheng but they don't go whining to the polizei any more than I do.

He would know it was me. He'd know that with knobs on. And word
would get round. Word would get back to Count Suckle's people. Then they would know where I stood too.

See what I mean? I was in the clear.

Also, tonight was the night. Tonight, at the old Ladywell Baths I was fighting Rockin' Sherry-Lee Lewis, Star of the East. Tonight would be the first night I fought a real star. Tonight would be magic.

Things started to go wrong as soon as I got back to the yard.

Why do they do that? Why?

Can't they leave me alone to enjoy my life? I mean, what harm would it do if I had one decent day without any fuck-ups? Other people have them, so why not me? One single solitary decent day, that's all I ask.

Did I get it? Was I born beautiful? Same answer to both questions.

I parked well away from the yard in a different street to the Cortina. It was funny but I had the Renault 12, the Fiat Panda, the Cortina and now the Volvo estate all within spitting distance of the yard, and the polizei hadn't found one of them yet. All you have to do with a borrowed motor is to park it with other motors and no one will notice it. It's trying to hide them which gets you in bother.

All the same, I was thinking I should be a bit careful and not ride my luck. I came round the corner thinking about this. And then I saw the dogs. Those poor dogs.

‘Oh shit,' I said.

It was awful. The dogs were sort of hanging from the wire fence.

I didn't even want to go and look.

We were a team – Ramses, Lineker and me. We were Armour Protection.

I had to go and look.

I walked slowly towards them. I should never have left them on their own. Saving my own bacon had seemed the important thing. I should've
thought.