Monkey Wrench (3 page)

‘Yeah, t'rific,' I said, grinning at her. ‘Well, off you go then. Go on. Go and get your fanny warmed up and while you're at it get
your
thick head bashed in.'

‘You in then?' Bella said. ‘Never mind. Look, I'll make it easy for you, 'cos I can see thinking don't come natural. If you're in, come to the Full Moon dinner time tomorrow. If you're out, get knotted. All right?'

And she turned round and walked off looking exactly like what
she was. And I thought, how can I teach someone who can hardly walk in that little skirt and those shoes how to fight?

‘Self-defence?' I said to Crystal. ‘She can't hardly walk. What's the point me learning her how to punch and kick, if she dresses like that?'

Both Crystal and me watched Bella teetering from the light of one street lamp to the next until she disappeared round the corner into the bottom of Mandala Street.

Crystal sighed. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Sensible, like me. But then Crystal wouldn't attract no horny punters either. She's got a face like a monkey and she doesn't wear make-up.

She said, ‘Eva, can I come in? I've only got my room to go to, and it still smells like Dawn.'

Well, I couldn't really tell her to fuck off, could I? Call me a sentimental fool, but I couldn't just walk off and leave her looking pitiful by the gate.

‘You got to promise not to cry,' I said, unlocking one of the padlocks. ‘I can't abide people crying.'

‘I'm not crying,' she said. ‘I'm angry.'

Which made it all right. So I let her in and took her to the Static for a brew.

Crystal is no more of a crier than me. But she did want to talk. I don't mind that too much. I like stories.

‘You never took to Dawn,' she said, when we'd got our hands wrapped around a couple of mugs of tea.

‘She never took to me,' I reminded her. ‘If she'd of let us in that night it'd be a different story.'

‘You always remember the bad bits,' she said.

Well, I'd be a fool not to, wouldn't I? If you forget about the bad bits how you going to avoid them in the future? Besides I never did know any good bits about Dawn.

‘Dawn wasn't always like that,' she went on, dipping her upper lip in her tea. ‘Except she was always the pretty one. I used to think she was lucky, but when we got more grown up I reckoned she wasn't. Everyone wants things off you if you're pretty. Being pretty makes you a mark.'

Crystal knows about marks. That's what makes her such a shrewd trader down the market. I never thought about it before – mark, market. Geddit?

She didn't notice me sniggering, and she went on, ‘Even when she was very young, y'know, eleven or twelve, there'd be blokes coming up to Dawn, saying things like, “Hey, gorgeous. Fancy a drink, want to come dancing?” Stuff like that. And she used to go to pubs and things before she was old enough. And she thought the blokes were giving her a good time. She didn't know they never
give
anything. There's always a price. The first time she came home crying with blood on her legs and she said someone hurt her. That's when she realised about the price. But, see, she didn't learn from it 'cos she kept falling in love. She believed in love. She said it made her feel real.

‘There was this bloke. We used to see him on our way home from school sometimes. On the days we actually went to school. He had a big red car and he used to wear very flash suits. He collected the money from the arcade. That's where we used to go after school – to the arcade. And I could tell he had his eye on Dawn. Because, even then, I used to try to watch out for her. She really needed a minder.

‘This flash bloke, he'd say to me, “Shove off, titch, you're in the way. Three's a crowd.”

‘And I'd say, “I'll tell our mum. I know your sort.”

‘And he'd say, “You know bugger all.” And then he'd say to Dawn, “'Course, if you
want
your kid sister tagging along why don't you go down the playground with the boys.”

‘And then she'd say, “Shove off, Crystal.” And if
she
said shove off, I had to shove off.

‘One time when I got really worried I did tell our mum. And she went and told her husband. And he gave Dawn and me the strap and locked us in our room at night. But Dawn was in love so she climbed out the window. And she wouldn't talk to me for weeks. Which is why, when she started missing her monthlies, she never told me. And by the time she did she was already three months gone.'

‘I never knew Dawn had a baby,' I said.

‘She didn't,' Crystal said. ‘She lost it. Well, she had it, but it was born blue and we couldn't save it. See, what happened was, she told me about being up the spout and we decided to go and talk to this flash bloke together. She thought he loved her too. She thought he couldn't wait to get married, and the only thing stopping him was her being underage.

‘But the first thing he said was, “How do I know it's mine?” And the second thing he said was, “Get married? I think my wife might have something to say about that.” Turns out he has a wife and a couple of kids not much younger than Dawn.

‘Then he says, “Here's some money for an abortion, but if you come round me whining again, the next time you look in the mirror you'll think you're looking at a butcher's window.”

‘That's what he said, word for word. That's the type Dawn fell in love with.

‘There wasn't much I could do. Of course I slashed his tyres with a carpet knife, and I lobbed a brick through the windscreen.'

‘'Course you did,' I said. Crystal's like me. She has a lot of self-respect.

‘But he didn't change his mind,' said Crystal. ‘And by the time Dawn plucked up enough courage to go to the doctor, and by the time the tests were done she was nearly five months gone, and no one would touch her. And then our mum noticed, and her husband threw Dawn out.'

‘I suppose you went too,' I said, ‘to look after her.' Because if had been
my
sister, I'd've done the exact same thing. Except my sister wouldn't get into trouble that way. She's much too smart, and she isn't interested in men.

‘Yeah,' Crystal said. ‘We came to London and hit the streets, and then one night Dawnie had these pains, and along came a little baby, all black and blue, like she'd been thumped, and we couldn't make it breathe, so we buried it in the garden of one of those houses on Kipling Road before they knocked them all down.

‘It was my fault really. I hadn't got the hang of things and I could never seem to scrounge enough to feed Dawn proper. It
was just as well, though, about the baby. I'd never've managed with three of us, and Dawn would've got taken in care for sure. She never could've stood for social workers and things.

‘Anyway, it cured her of love, and the next bloke she met she made him pay. “Crystal,” she said, “it's no different from doing it for love, but you eat better.”

‘And then, because she was still young and pretty, another bloke she met set her up in that room in Paddington. And he took care of her. And even though she gave him two-thirds of what she made she still lived better than she ever did before. Or since, for that matter.'

‘You said you wouldn't cry,' I said.

‘I'm not,' she said. ‘I'm just bloody angry.'

So I lent her a T-shirt to blow her nose on.

I said I like stories, but I didn't like that one much. For one thing, I've heard it too many times before. Change the names, change the dialogue, and I bet you've heard it too.

Crystal dropped off to sleep on my couch so I went out to do my rounds with Ramses and Lineker.

‘Good thing you're not female,' I said to Lineker. ‘You're just the type who'd fall pregnant to a married bloke.' He was sleek and beautiful and dozy, and if he didn't have Ramses and me to keep him up to the mark, people would take advantage right, left and centre.

I heard a lot of girls' stories when I was young. If you spend much time in reform schools and what they call ‘places of safety' you hear just about everything bad that can happen to girls. And let me tell you, this love thing is fucking lethal. Because what's love for the girls is just a poke for the blokes, only the girls don't want to admit it. I'm glad I've got more moral fibre.

I bet you think I don't know what I'm talking about. You take one look at me and you think, no one ever fancied her. So what does she know about sex?

Well, that just goes to show how ignorant you are.

I tried it once and I didn't like it. So there.

Actually, I didn't try it. Someone did it to me. But I still didn't like it. And, tell you the truth, nor did he. 'Specially after I threw his trousers in the furnace. Because that's where it happened – in the boiler room of one of those ‘special' schools they kept sending me to. I used to bunk off lessons to the boiler room because it was the warmest place in the building, and one afternoon the maintenance man caught me there. He said he wouldn't dob on me if I let him have a little feel. Ha ha. Well, he lost his trousers and I found out where a lot of the other girls got their sweets and cigarettes.

Place of safety? Don't make me laugh!

'Course, what you don't hear about in special schools is the girls who get to marry the flash-suited bloke in the big red car. I mean, someone married him, right? Or he wouldn't've had a wife and kids. And maybe she thought she'd got it all. Maybe they'd go out together of a Saturday and choose wallpaper for the spare bedroom. Maybe she never knew about little Dawnie and her blue baby. Or maybe she did. Maybe she divorced him and cleaned him out. But maybe she's still with him, cooking his tea at night and watching what he wants to watch on telly, because she can't get at his money and she'd rather be miserable than poor.

Whoever has the pennies has the power, I always say. Which is why I intend to earn as many dolly-drops as I can. And when I'm rich and famous I won't have to be polite to bobble-heads ever again.

When I got tired of watching Lineker chase rats I went back to the Static. Crystal had woken up and put the kettle on. Her little monkey face was a picture of woe, and I thought it was about time she went home. She was making a dent in my cheerful disposition.

But she said, ‘I wish I knew who did it, Eva. There was more than one of them. The girls said Dawn went out with two blokes, and she had punch marks and boot marks all over.'

‘If I do decide to teach self-defence,' I said, ‘one of the first things I'll say is, “Never take on two at a time.” That's so dumb.'

‘Dawn wasn't very clever,' Crystal said.

‘Still, she was rat-arsed,' I said, trying to be kind. ‘Could be she was seeing double and didn't know the difference.'

‘She didn't have any money on her,' Crystal said. ‘So the bastards robbed her too.'

‘Maybe she drank it.'

‘No,' Crystal said. ‘The girls say she bought her last drink out of a ten-pound note.'

‘That's another thing,' I said. ‘Always hide your stash. No point reeling round with tenners in your pocket, putting temptation in people's way.'

‘I don't think it was about money,' Crystal said. ‘She didn't have much. And y'know, she didn't
look
like she had any, either. Not in the last year, anyhow. She looked, well, like no one cared.'

‘I know,' I said. ‘I saw her.' She'd been like something you see in the gutter. No self-respect.

‘But I cared,' Crystal said. ‘She was my Dawnie. But I couldn't stop her boozing, and I couldn't stop her, y'know, going with blokes. Never could. Not even when we was young. And now, no one cares even less. The cops don't care. They aren't even looking for who killed her. They say it goes with the job, for someone like Dawn.'

‘They would,' I said. I wouldn't want anyone to catch me agreeing with the polizei, but they had a point.

‘So Eva,' Crystal said. ‘If I find out who did it, will you help me kill them? Or something?'

What a question! Me. Kill someone over Dawn? Crystal had to be bonkers. When I thought about it I realised she
was
bonkers. And if it was
my
sister on a meat tray with boot marks all over I might be bonkers too. But I wasn't going to put myself out over Dawn. No way.

‘Okay,' I said. ‘You find 'em, I'll kick 'em.'

Well, I had to, didn't I? Crystal was demented, right? Always agree with a demented woman, because if you try to reason with her you'll end up as demented as she is. In fact you'll end up agreeing with her. So why not save yourself the bother of becoming demented and agree straight off?

Just for once in my life I'd said the right thing because Crystal finished her tea and dropped off to sleep again, although even in sleep she looked forlorn.

But she was in my way. I had to creep around in case she woke up with any more thoughts which would need a total brain bypass to understand.

I got through the night one way or another, and then I penned the dogs and went to bed.

'Course I had to dream about it, didn't I? Other people's griefs are infectious. You catch 'em like a case of the snivels. Or maybe
you
don't. Maybe I'm just sensitive. Yeah. That's it. But in dreams it all comes out churned up. Because while I don't give a squashed turd about Crystal's sister I do give one about mine. And in this dream I had a baby. Only it wasn't a baby, it was my sister, Simone, and she was all black and blue. And she was dead. But the horrible part was that she kept sitting up and pushing her black and blue face into mine saying things like, ‘You shouldn't have let them do it. You should have looked after me.' And I'd say, ‘Do what? You're only a baby.' And, ‘I can't have a baby. You're my sister.' And I wanted it to stop. I wanted to get away. But I couldn't move.