Musclebound (10 page)

I ain’t a superstitious person, but I do believe there’s things those obeah ladies know which nobody else knows and if you stay on the sunny side of them you’ll be all right. There’s always a sting in the tail though – it’s like making a pact with the devil. So, maybe I wasn’t coughing and sneezing no more, but I was pissing pints and feeling as wobbly as a raw egg on a china plate.

Which is why I was sitting in front of the paraffin stove holding on to my knees when Simone came. The yard was empty and quiet and I should of let the dogs out except I was waiting for my legs.

‘Eva,’ Simone said, ‘what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘Aren’t you well?’

‘I told you,’ I said. Because it’s true – I been telling everyone that I had the flu but no one believed me. Well, Simone might have but that’s because she’s my sister. Everyone else always wants to believe the worst of you.

I was so pleased to see her the strength came back in my legs and I got up.

She said, ‘What’s the matter? You look different.’

I don’t have no mirrors in the Static so I couldn’t see what she was talking about.

I said, ‘I been thinking.’

‘What about?’

‘What you said. Going into business together. We could call the fitness centre “Musclebound”.’

‘That’s a good name,’ she said.

‘And I been thinking – I don’t want to shout no more. I just want us to be together. I don’t want to stand in the rain and count to a hundred.’

‘Oh, Eva,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean it. It’s just I get so upset when people shout.’

‘Wasn’t shouting at you.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’

And she did know.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘let’s go out for a meal. You know, Eva, I don’t understand how you can live in this place. I can’t wait to get you out to somewhere decent.’

She cared about me. She really did.

‘I can’t go out tonight,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Someone broke in last night. I got to stop in and take care of business.’

‘Who?’ she said, all startled.

‘Dunno,’ I said. ‘It was while we was at the Cat and Cowbell. I din’t see who. The dogs got him.’

‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘This is a bad place in a bad area. You’ve got to find something else. Fast. Was anything stolen?’

‘I can look after meself,’ I told her. ‘It ain’t so bad.’

‘But it is,’ she said. ‘Someone broke in. What happened? What got stolen?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘The dogs got him first. They’re good dogs. You need a semi-automatic or a machete to get past Ramses and Lineker.’

‘But that’s so awful,’ Simone said. ‘I hate to think of you out here all by yourself. Are you sure nothing was stolen?’

She was gazing at me with those dark blue eyes, and it was like I was seeing her for the first time. Like all the other times were scrambled. Like I’d been peering in through a dirty window, not seeing clear.

She said, ‘I want to begin again too.’

I was just going to ask, ‘Begin what?’ I was just starting to ask, because she’d had a life, she’d had a whole life without me, and I didn’t know what it was. I wanted to hear the whole story. But I didn’t have time to ask.

There was a crash and the door flew open.

Simone screamed.

Two blokes charged in. Two big blokes with no faces. One big
bloke had a blade. One big bloke had a lump hammer. He barged towards me, hammer high.

I leapt back. I fell arse up over the paraffin heater. Paraffin spilled. Blue flame licked. I was sitting in licking blue flame.

Simone screamed again.

I couldn’t look. Fire was spreading like water across the floor. I rolled.

I couldn’t look at Simone. I was rolling. Slapping myself and rolling.

Simone screaming. Wait, fucking wait, girl. I can’t help you now. I’m burning up.

I grabbed the sleeping bag off the bunk. I rolled in it. I rolled on the flame. I smothered it.

I got up.

I was alone in the Static. The two blokes were gone. Simone was gone.

Where? The blue flame licked and flickered in my brain.

And shit – the ankle of my sweatpants was alight. I slapped it out.

Fucking where …?

I ran out the door. I slammed it behind me.
Where? There
. Two big blokes dragging Simone across the yard. I grabbed the tyre-iron off the step. I ran.

In the dark I saw my ankle burst into flame again. One fiery sock. I ran through a puddle.

Simone was screaming, ‘Help me, Eva.’ Shrill and scary, like a little kid. ‘Help me, Eva.’

And I’m running through toffee. I’ll never get there. I can’t see – there’s blue flame in me eyes.

One bloke peels off the group. Stands his ground. Hammer high.

Says, ‘Stop right there.’

I stop.

He says, ‘Make one move and you’ll never see your sister again.’

Shrill, strangled, ‘
Help!’
from Simone.

I swing my arm back. I sling the tyre-iron. It leaves my hand – whoosh. And –
thunk
. The bloke with the hammer catches it just below his chin. It seems to wrap itself round his neck like an iron worm and drag him down.

He’s on the ground. I throw myself after the tyre-iron. I land on the bloke. I grab the hammer. I hit him.

I hit him with his own hammer, and time stood still.

I hit him with his own hammer. And the hammer head disappeared inside his skull.

And time stood still. And everything shut up. Not a tick. Not a tock. Not a scream from Simone. Not nothing. Just a big empty space. And a man’s head with a hammer stuck out of it.

Then the bloke with the blade said, ‘Jesus Christ. Shit. Fuck. What’ve you done?’

He dropped Simone. Dropped the blade. Staggered towards me.

He says, ‘You killed him. You fuckin’ killed him.’

He says, ‘You fuckin’ killed him,’ without moving his mouth. His face is a deformed slab.

He staggers away.

I look up.

Simone is down on her knees. She’s holding her head in her hands. Her shiny raincoat is splashed with oily mud.

I get up.

I go to Simone. I sit in the mud beside her. My ankle stings. I start smearing mud on it. I pack mud on the charred bottom of my sweatpants. Thick cold mud soothes the raw patches on my skin. I daub more on. I make a circular pattern in the mud with one fingertip.

I am waiting for Simone to say something.

After a long time Simone got up. She went slow-slowly over to the bloke with the hammer. She knelt down beside him. She didn’t do anything. She just looked.

‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘God, God, God.’

I said, ‘I din’t mean it.’

‘What?’ she said.

‘I din’t mean it,’ I said. ‘I had to stop him.’

‘Oh God,’ she said.

I said, ‘Is he?’ and she said, ‘Oh Christ,’ so I knew he was. It would’ve been worse, I suppose, if he wasn’t. Suppose he wasn’t, and he got up and walked away with a hammer stuck out of his head?

Suddenly I knew we was in trouble.

I got up and went to the gate. I didn’t know what time it was. I couldn’t remember when the yard emptied. I didn’t know how long the gate had been left open.

I shut the gate and locked it tight. There was no sign of the other bloke. Simone’s little Clio stood by the kerb. And I thought, suppose I’ve locked the other bloke in instead of out? Then I thought, well it’s his fault too. Because we was in so much trouble I didn’t know what to think.

I wanted the dogs out. But I couldn’t let them out. There was a dead bloke on the ground.

‘Milo!’ I said. Where was Milo? He’d been in the Static with me when Simone came but I didn’t notice him after the blokes came.

‘Simone,’ I said. ‘Where’s Milo?’

But she didn’t answer. She was trying to pull the dead bloke’s head off.

‘What you
doin
’?’ I said. But she didn’t answer. I went over. I thought she’d gone potty, see.

‘
Don’t!’
I said.

But it was a stocking the bloke had over his face. She’d turned him over and she was pulling it off.

Oh, I thought. Oh. Well, that was why the bloke’s head looked so deformed. I should of understood but I was in such a panic. I didn’t see what I was looking at.

Simone pulled the stocking up to his forehead, and I stared at the bloke’s face. His eyes were open and he looked like he didn’t understand. The stocking cut a puzzle line just above his eyebrows and he looked as if he was going to open his gob and say, ‘But I don’t understand.’

I said, ‘Who the fuck is he?’ and she said, ‘Oh God.’

‘Do you know who he is?’ I said. “Cos I never seen him before in my life.’

She just shook her head.

‘Then why?’ I said. ‘I don’t understand.’ ’Cos I was trying to remember the bloke who tried to shoot my head off. But I couldn’t. That’d been a total fuck-up too, and I couldn’t remember seeing his face. I thought he was pointing a stick at me. But it was a sawn-off shooter.

‘Why?’ I said again.

She looked at me then. She hardly had no face – just eyes staring at me from under wet hair. And the bloke with the puzzle-frown seemed to be staring at me too.

‘I didn’t mean it,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t my fault.’ ’Cos it wasn’t. I was just trying to … ‘What we going to do, Simone?’ I said. ‘What we going to do?’

‘Shut
up,’
she said. ‘Just shut up. It’s
you
. Not me. I always knew one day you’d fuck up so bad you’d never be able to fix it. Now you’ve done it.’

‘But they was taking
you,’
I said. ‘I was trying to …’

‘But why was they taking me?’ she said. ‘What’ve you done, Eva? What the hell have you done now?’

‘Nuffin,’ I said. ‘I ain’t done nuffin.’

‘Call this nothing?’ she said. ‘You killed him, Eva. Why did you have to kill him?’

‘I din’t,’ I said. ‘I only hit him. I only hit him, Simone. I’ve hit people harder in the ring. When you’re wrestling, Simone, you hit people all the time. And they don’t die. No one never
dies.’

‘You ain’t in the ring,’ she said. ‘And even if you were you wouldn’t hit them with a hammer. And shut up shouting – someone’ll hear.’

‘Don’t leave, Simone,’ I whispered. ‘Please. Don’t. I can’t think. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Shut
up,’
she said. ‘I can’t think either.’

So I shut up and she didn’t leave.

See, we was in so much trouble I really couldn’t think. I kept looking at the bloke, and I’d think, ‘Who are you?’ And, ‘What we going to do?’ And then I’d start asking myself where Milo was. I just couldn’t seem to keep my brain in one place. It was bouncing off windows. It wouldn’t stick to the subject.

Simone said, ‘We’ve got to get rid of him.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. I was so relieved she said that. I couldn’t stand him staring at me no more.

‘Could we bury him here?’ she said.

‘
No
.’ That was a horrible idea.

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ I said.

‘Yeah, why?’ she said. ‘If we bury him here we won’t have to move him.’

I thought about it. It was still a horrible idea.

‘Um, ‘cos of the dogs,’ I said.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘They’d dig him up.’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘Where, then?’

‘Dunno.’ But at the same time I said that, a picture came in my mind of something rolled in a carpet being dropped off of a bridge in the rain.

And a split second later, Simone said, ‘In the river.’ So maybe we’re psychic, Simone and me. Or maybe we saw the same movie.

‘How do we get him there?’ Simone said, and I said, ‘I ain’t got a carpet.’

‘What?’ she said.

‘To roll him in.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake!’ she said.

‘You got a car,’ I said.

‘He ain’t going in my car.’

‘Well, how, then?’

She couldn’t answer that, so I opened the gate for her and she drove the Clio into the yard.

She opened the boot. I looked at the boot and I looked at the dead bloke.

‘Shit,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Big bloke, little car.’

‘Well, excuse me!’ she said. ‘I don’t want him in my car anyway. And you’ll have to close his eyes. He’s freaking me out.’

In the movies, see, someone just passes a hand down the dead guy’s face – sort of stroking – and the open eyes close. I didn’t fancy stroking our bloke’s face. Suppose it wasn’t that easy? Suppose you had to press the eyelids down with your thumbs? Suppose they kept popping open again? No, I didn’t fancy that at all.

Instead, I had a much worse thought.

‘Simone,’ I said, ‘maybe Milo’s in the Static’

‘What?’

‘Milo,’ I said. I looked at the Static. It hadn’t burned down.

‘What about Milo?’ Simone said.

‘I knocked the paraffin stove over.’

‘So?’

‘There was burning paraffin on the floor,’ I said. ‘Milo might be trapped in there.’

‘So what?’ she said. ‘We’ve got a dead guy here.’

‘So
what?’
I said. But I had to forgive her. Nothing was normal and she was very twitchy.

She said, ‘What about his eyes? You killed him – it’s up to you to close his eyes.’

‘No it ain’t,’ I said. Because in the movies the person who strokes the dead guy’s eyes is usually a doctor or someone who cares about him. The killer doesn’t do it. It ain’t fitting.

Besides, there was Milo.

‘Pull the stocking down again,’ I said.

‘Fuck that,’ she said. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Milo,’ I said.

‘Don’t leave me,’ she said.

‘Come too,’ I said.

So we both went to look for Milo, and I was ever so pleased I had something else to do. Except I was wetting myself with worry for Milo. I was hoping there wasn’t much paraffin left in the stove, but I didn’t know. It was Keif who lit it, and maybe the stupid bugger filled it first. But, see, even if there wasn’t a big fire, Milo could of been overcome with the fumes.

And supposing, when I opened the Static door the whole shebang burst into flames with the fresh air?

So I went and got the big fire extinguisher from the equipment shed.

Ain’t it amazing? I could deal with the idea of my home burning down but I couldn’t close a dead guy’s eyes. Ain’t it stone peculiar how you can think clear as a bell about one thing and not about another?