Monkey Wrench (6 page)

He said, ‘If this is one of your fucking stupid jokes, Eva Wylie …'

And I sort of stopped hearing. The rest happened like I was watching TV.

What it looked like was Bella doing a deal with Pete Carver for an upright against the wall. And while that was going down, Stef started to roll a smoko. Gruff Gordon grabbed Kath. Kath grabbed California. California missed Kath with a right armed hay-maker, and Gruff caught it between his pecs.

Mandy, escaping to the door, tripped over a barbell and took Mr Deeds down on to the mat – two suet puddings with arms and legs.

Gruff head-butted California.

Harsh strolled away to the showers.

My meter ran out. The gym was full of freaks and retards, and California was spitting bloody phlegm at Lynn. I did what I'd wanted to do ever since I met him – I sank a putt into Gruff Gordon's belly.

I don't know why. I just wanted to. I was very exact about it. The target was just under his ribs. I aimed, fired off my right fist, and jabbed the bull's-eye. Woof! If I'd done the same thing to
California Carl I'd have broken my hand, but that's because he's got a gut like a door. Gruff Gordon has a belly like a laundry bag and my knuckles sank right in. If I'd put more behind it I'd have tickled his kidneys – his abs were that spongy.

A shirt couldn't have folded faster. It was ever so satisfying.

Gruff Gordon doesn't think women should go in the ring. He's always on at Mr Deeds to kick me off the programme. Gruff Gordon, who thinks a woman's place is on her back on the kitchen table with her skirt over her head, folded like a shirt and hit the floor retching.

It was lovely. And if you ever get the chance to wallop someone who has pissed you around for as long as Gruff Gordon has pissed me, you'll agree. With knobs on.

‘What you done that for?' Flying Phil asked, all amazed. ‘What's Gruff done to you?'

I was still a bit over-excited and I couldn't be bothered to talk so I shouldered him out of the way and went.

Next thing I knew I was driving up to my ma's block of flats and my hair was wet. I don't remember having a shower but I must have because my hair was wet. I don't remember changing but I must have because I was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt. I don't remember borrowing a car but I must have because I was driving a yellow Ford Cortina with a little blue doll dangling from the mirror. I don't remember leaving the gym but I must have because I wasn't there anymore.

I hate that. It's weird. You're in one place, and then you're in another. And there's space in between which is empty. I hate the empty space. I'm in charge, right? But who's in charge when I can't remember?

Also, I do not want to see my ma. I used to see her regular, but last year she let me down and she ain't been forgiven yet. She doesn't believe in family feeling like I do. She could bring us all together but she won't. She never did. So I'll go and see her when she has a change of heart, but not before.

I used to think that because she had a hard life herself she couldn't look after my sister and me the way she wanted to. But last year I
decided she never wanted to – she'd rather see us in Council care than make a home for us herself. Making a home was too much like hard work for our ma.

So I'm buggered if I know what I was doing, driving up to her block of flats. It was the last place I wanted to be. Also, if you must know, I was totally cheesed off with people. And if you're cheesed off with people the last person you want to see is my ma.

So I turned round and went home to Ramses and Lineker. They may not like me much but at least I know where I am with them. And they do what I tell them, if I shout loud enough, which is more than you can say for friggin' people. Like those five slags and Crystal when they tottered into my gym all tiddly and turned the place arse over elbow. Not understanding or caring how my gym works.

‘Right,' I shouted at Ramses. ‘You sit there and shut up.' And I fetched his brush and started to shine him up. I worked on his coat starting at the neck, brushing his hair up the wrong way, inspecting the parting of bluish skin, searching for scabs and fleas. Then, starting at the tail, if he'd had a tail, I brushed all the hair flat again, bit by bit, along all his hard muscles. Afterwards I washed his face and ears with a wet cloth getting into all the folds and crannies of his massive ugly head, feeling that stony scar around his neck, and feeling, all the while, his stony little eyes on me. He sat absolutely still, but he watched me, and while I was searching him for fleas, he was searching me for weakness. He's waiting, always waiting, for a time when I'm not ready for him.

He'll die waiting, because I'm always fucking ready.

And then Lineker, slimmer, faster, with his long lean snout and his short hard coat which shines up like the paint work on a brand new motor. ‘Keep still, shark face,' I growled, because he's not like Ramses. He's got a smaller head and a smaller brain and he doesn't concentrate like Ramses does. But he polishes up lovely.

They are the tools of my trade, those two, and anyone'll tell you, you got to keep the tools of your trade in good nick. Ramses and Lineker are in fighting nick. And so am I.

‘But only as long as you stay ready,' Ramses said, in my head, watching me with his stony little eyes.

Now, the thing about elbows is that when they are hurt they really hurt. My elbow had swollen up again. It must have been the weights. I hadn't noticed at the time, but now I did.

In the Static I put some water on to heat. First, I made tea because you have to get your priorities right in this life. Then I sat down, resting my elbow in a bowl of hot water, and studied the bruising where Gypsy Jo hammered on me with her feet.

‘Hot water,' Harsh says. ‘You want all the veins and capillaries to open wide. You want increased circulation. You want your blood to feed an injury. You want your blood to take away the poisons.'

Which made me think about Dawn who was kicked to death. It'd take more than a bowl of hot water to tweak up her circulation now.

One time, my ma took a bit of a kicking, and she had black and blue all up her legs. So she limped away to the off-licence for a couple of bottles to ease her pain and soothe her freaky boyfriend. Only when she got home the boyfriend had scarpered so she sat down and eased her pain all by herself. But while she drank she smoked, and while she smoked she drank. Things being how they are with smoking and drinking, the time soon came when she nodded off and dropped her ciggy down the side of the sofa, where it continued to smoulder. The ciggy smouldered, and then the sofa smouldered, and the cushion smouldered. And very soon my ma's frock started to smoulder too.

How do I know this? Well, I smelled it. That's how. From inside the cupboard under the stairs, which is where my ma used to put my sister and me whenever she wanted to fuck or fight or both. She put us in the cupboard under the stairs and turned the key in the lock and did whatever it was she didn't want us to see.

It was dark in the cupboard. They don't build windows in cupboards. We didn't know what time it was. We'd been in there a long time. Simone was asleep. She always used to sleep after
she'd been frightened. She was frightened because even though we couldn't see what our ma didn't want us to see we could hear everything. And we heard every one of those black and blue bruises on ma's legs.

You think you can't
hear
a bruise? Well, believe me, you can.

I smelled smoke. I wasn't very old at the time and I hadn't learned much, but I'd learned enough to know that smoke meant fire. I woke Simone up and we started to scream and cry and bang on the cupboard door.

Nobody heard us. Ma did not wake up, and we began to choke and gag on the smoke. We were too small to break the door and too weak to make a hole in the stairs above. So we did what small weak people do – we screamed and cried and wet ourselves. And still Ma did not wake up. Well, she couldn't, could she? She was sotted out of her brain-box, and even before that, she'd forgotten all about us.

So you see, there might have been no Eva, no Armour Protection, no London Lassassin, and all because of a few bruises. If you think bruises can't kill, you're wrong. I know better. And so does Dawn.

I looked at my bruised elbow and I thought about having a tattoo – a green and red dragon swarming down my arm. Or up my arm. Which way should it go? If its head was up it would look as if it was crawling on to my shoulder which would be fine if I was bare-shouldered. But if I was wearing a shirt it would look as if it was crawling up my sleeve. A dragon with its head at the wrist end of my arm would look as if it was trying to get off. I thought about rats leaving a sinking ship. Rats. I've never seen tattoo rats on anyone, but maybe rats were righter for the London Lassassin than dragons.

I imagined fighting. Me in my black costume with three rats tattooed on my left arm. Just the left one. It would be classier than tattoos on both arms. Three rats – one on the deltoid, one on the bicep and one on the forearm. The three rats would all be facing in different directions and that would solve the problem about whether they were coming or going.

I get these ideas sometimes. I'm a lot more creative than people think.

By that time the water was cold and I was hungry. But I'd forgotten to go shopping again. I'd like to invent a pill you could buy in packs of twenty which you could take when you forgot to go shopping. The pill would swell up in your belly to the size of a full meal and you wouldn't feel hungry for twelve hours. That's the trouble with food – you've got to buy a lot to feel full. And when you feel full, like as not, you've eaten too much. And when you've eaten too much you get fat. And when you get fat you stretch your black costume in all the wrong places and the crowd calls you names on top of all the other names they call you. So if they already call you Bucket Nut, for instance, and they add ‘fat butt', you can wind up being called ‘Fat Butt Bucket Nut.' Which isn't very nice. But I'm a big girl, and if I don't eat lots I get hungry. Which isn't very nice either.

Rat tattoos would distract attention. Everyone would look at the rats and forget about the size of my arse. Although, actually, it isn't my arse which bothers me. It's my abs. Big Gut Bucket Nut.

Life can be a frigging awful problem sometimes.

But sitting on your arse with your elbow in a bowl of cold water doesn't solve any problems, so I dried off and went out. I took a torch and one of those big Bonio things I give the dogs as treats, and I went off to inspect the fence.

Which turned out to be a mistake.

Crystal popped up like a gremlin from behind a parked car and said, ‘Where you been, Eva? I've been waiting hours.'

‘Fuck off, gnome,' I said. ‘Ain't you caused enough trouble for one day?'

‘We shouldn't of come to the gym,' she said, scratching her curly mop. ‘I saw that, soon as we fetched up there.'

‘Fucking right,' I said. ‘The deal's off.'

‘What we need is premises,' she said, like I'd never opened my mouth. ‘So I've found us premises,' she said, ‘and I want you to come and see.'

‘Got turds in your ears?' I said. ‘The deal's off.'

‘What you doing, eating dog biscuits?' she asked.

‘I'm not,' I said, swallowing. ‘It's training. This dog does what I say, I give him a Bonio. See?' I threw the other half to Lineker who had been following me round like I was a bitch on heat.

‘I really fancy a pizza,' Crystal said. ‘Double cheese and pepperoni. Want one? My treat.'

‘Where's the others?' I said, suspicious.

‘There's a cock fight in the car park,' she said.

‘What?'

‘Y'know, bloke hens,' she said. ‘Men from the market and the Full Moon, they fight cocks sometimes.'

We walked up Mandala Street. There's nothing so dead as a market street at night. All the stalls were gone to their lockups and the gutters were ankle deep in lettuce leaves and wet paper bags. It's so quiet you notice it. Everyone shouts in a market, but at night there's just the smell of dead cauliflowers.

‘Where you going?' Crystal said. She'd stopped by a door and I'd walked on.

‘The pizza place.'

‘In a minute,' she said. ‘I told you.'

‘Oh no,' I said. ‘The deal's off. I told
you.'

‘It's right here,' she said.

‘It' was a broken down shop with a boarded up window and a ‘To Let' sign which looked as if it'd been there since before the Beatles.

‘Want a look?' she said.

‘Fuck off,' I said. ‘I'm hungry.'

‘Me too,' said Crystal. ‘Only I ought to inspect the site.'

‘Well you inspect it,' I said. ‘I'm off.'

‘Only I sort of lost the key,' she said. ‘It won't take a tick if you, y'know, open up for me. I'll stand you the biggest pizza ever.'

I went back and looked at the door. I tested it with my shoulder.

‘It's locked,' I said.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I lost the key.'

‘You got a key?' I said. ‘It's your place?'

‘We need premises,' she said. ‘I thought this'd do.'

It looked as if there had been squatters inside, and the place had been cleared and battened down afterwards. It looked as if someone had tried to get in again but failed.

I heaved with my shoulder. Nothing budged.

‘You better find that key,' I said. ‘I can't shift this.'

‘Got a crowbar,' she said, and she rooted in a plastic bag which I had taken for rubbish left in the doorway.

It was a good stout lock. Even with the crowbar I had to shove with all my weight before the door tore open. It was a bit like the old days when Crystal and me needed a place to kip. The mouldy smell was the same too, and the cold. These places feel like cellars even on a warm night.