Rebuilding Coventry (8 page)

‘Excuse
me, can you give me a light?’

‘Oh,
you
did
frighten me, darting out like that.’

She
took a tortoiseshell lighter from her shoulder-bag and clicked it into flame.
My face and my right hand were illuminated as I sucked the cigarette alight.
She said, ‘We’re a dying breed, we smokers. One’s surprised to meet another
nowadays.’

‘Yes,’
I said. ‘This is my first cigarette for twenty-four hours.’ ‘Tried to give it
up, did you?’

I
mumbled, ‘Couldn’t afford it.’

‘You
look
as though you’re financially embarrassed.’

‘I am,’
I said.

‘I’m
going to give you something,’ she said, and rummaged inside her bag. She
brought out, instead of money, as I’d hoped, a small card engraved:

Celia Heartslove

Financial Clairvoyant to the Stars

‘Come and see me when you
get back on your feet,’ she said. ‘I manage Investment Portfolios for household
names, and
you
have a positive aura. You’re going to
be
somebody.
By the way, what
is
that on your face and hands?’

‘It’s soot,’
I said. ‘I’m a chimney-sweep.’

She
laughed. ‘Are there any chimneys left? Well, I
am
surprised. I had my
Fallopian tubes tied and my chimneys blocked up years ago. Good night.’

The
cigarette warmed me, calmed me down, cheered me up and diminished my hunger
pains. As soon as I had finished it I immediately wanted another, so I went in
search of one. At a bus stop I found five half-smoked dog-ends on the pavement.
I also picked up an empty cigarette packet, half a comb and two and a half
pence in change. I felt better now that I had possessions. I put my small
acquisitions inside the cigarette box, and was almost cheerful as I walked
along the unknown streets. At ten o’clock I stopped in an alley to empty my
bowels. I wiped myself clean on dead leaves that had collected against the
wall. As I said, I am a fastidious woman.

The
rain had left puddles in the cracked pavements, and I dabbled my fingers in
them and licked the stony moisture as I journeyed on without a destination.

10 The Local
Paper

Bread Knife stared at the
front page of the local evening paper. Her daughter’s photograph stared back. ‘It’s
in,’ she said. And handed the paper to her little round husband.

‘Well,
I’m disgusted with the whole business,’ he said, after silently reading the whole
of the front page.

‘It’s
bad blood coming out,’ said Bread Knife. This was a reference to her husband’s
mother, Ruby, a woman now dead but who was known to have frequented violent
public houses and had mothered many children. One, a half-caste, now living in
Cardiff. Ruby had never married.

So
Tennis Ball was illegitimate. He had no idea who his father was and he didn’t
want
to know, thank you very much. When Ruby was on her way out, soon to die,
she had sent for him, but he hadn’t gone, fearing deathbed confessions and
sloppy physical contact.

‘They
say it misses a generation, don’t they?’ he said.

‘Well,
it has in this case, hasn’t it?’ said Bread Knife.

Tennis
Ball got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen and placed the newspaper
inside the waste-bin under the sink.

Out of
sight, out of mind.

KILLER HOUSEWIFE

‘COULD STRIKE AGAIN’
WARNING

Today residents of the
Grey Paths Council Estate were recovering from the shock-revelation that one of
their neighbours, Coventry Dakin, was wanted for the murder of Gerald Fox, who
was battered to death yesterday. Her husband, Derek Dakin, interviewed by our
reporter, Sandra Topping, said, ‘My wife has always been a gentle, timid
person. I can only think that she is mentally ill.’ Asked if he knew of an
alleged love tangle between his wife and the murdered man, Mr Dakin commented, ‘I
don’t know what to believe. Coventry has never shown any interest in other men
before.’

Balding,
bespectacled, neatly dressed Mr Dakin, a supervisor at Hopcroft Shoes Ltd,
broke down and wept. ‘She would literally not kill a fly; I had to shoo them
out of the window with a rolled up newspaper.’

The
children of the blonde killer, John, 17, and Mary, 16, are staying with their
grandmother, Mrs Edna Dakin, in her pensioner’s bungalow. ‘She was a dark
horse,’ said Mrs Dakin. ‘Nobody ever knew what she was thinking.’

Asked
if Mrs Dakin was surprised that her daughter-in-law was wanted for murder, Mrs
Dakin replied, ‘Not really.’

The
wife of the murdered man, Mrs Carole Fox, was today under deep sedation in
hospital. Her children, who witnessed the horrific slaying, are being cared for
by friends. Mr D. J. Broadway, headmaster of John Kennedy Primary School, where
the children are pupils, said: ‘I expect they will be off school for a few days.’
Asked to comment on the murder he said: ‘Grey Paths Estate has no community
centre; people have nothing to do in the evening.’

The
County Police Force have issued the following description of Coventry Dakin: ‘She
is 5 ‘8” tall, of slim build, with blonde hair and brown eyes. When last seen
she was wearing blue bell-bottom trousers and a grey sweatshirt printed with a
tortoise design.’

A
police spokesman added: ‘One theory for the murder motive is that Coventry
Dakin struck out in anger after Gerald Fox told her that their affair was over.
Another is that Coventry Dakin is a member of a fanatical feminist undercover
group who are pledged to eradicate men.’ When asked what evidence he had to
sustain such a startling theory, the spokesman said, ‘Several informants have
come forward and Dakin was known to have blackened her face in terrorist
fashion before battering Gerald Fox to death.’ He warned, ‘She could strike
again.’

11
Coventry Tittie

Around midnight on
Thursday, I had a rush of optimism to the head. Perhaps he’s alive. How could a
silly plastic doll kill a six-foot overweight man? I pulled a newspaper I’d
never heard of out of a litter-bin, the
Standard.
There was no mention
of me murdering a man; perhaps the London press was not interested in
provincial murder, though they had reported other violent deaths: people
crushed by farm machinery, trapped inside burning lorries, drowned in quarries.

After I’d
finished reading the paper I shoved it inside my sweatshirt where it served
two purposes: it kept me warm, and acted as a nipple guard. I haven’t mentioned
it before but, dirty and badly dressed as I was, I had been propositioned by
many men as I trudged along the pavements. All of the men looked respectable
and ordinary. Some had opened car doors and invited me into the passenger seat.
Some of the cars had baby seats in the back. I wondered why such men should try
to pick up a smelly stranger, when most of them would surely have a fragrant
wife at home. But then I remembered that my figure was outlined clearly by the
clothes I was wearing. I was a collection of female hormones on the move, and
served to remind men of their basic biological needs and desires. Nobody ever
takes a beautiful woman seriously, apart from herself.

My good
looks have always been a source of shame to my parents. When I was a child they
deliberately brutalized my appearance. My blonde curls were hacked off or
hidden under unflattering knitted caps. My body was clothed in an over-large
school uniform during the week, complete with clumpy lace-up shoes. At the
weekends I wore shrunken cardigans and floppy pleated skirts.

I was a
freak at an early age. My breasts started to grow at an alarming rate when I
was twelve. One moment I was running around playing games in the school playground
and, it seemed, the next I was huddled in a corner with my back stooped and my
arms folded over my chest. During the hottest summer I wore a cardigan; games
became an ordeal; showers were torture. I ran through the steaming room with my
eyes closed. It was a tall, thin, jealous girl called Tania Draycock who first
changed my nickname from ‘Coventry City’ to ‘Coventry Tittie’. By the age of
fifteen my breasts were enormous; even harnessed and bound they protruded
through my clothes. They affronted people. Teachers flicked their eyes away in
alarm, strangers stared in fascination.

My
relations were plain people who didn’t believe in hair ribbons or coloured
shoes. Their clothes were chosen for camouflage rather than adornment. So at
sixteen, when I became a beatnik, the attraction was not intellectual but
practical. Beatniks wore huge bosom-concealing sloppy sweaters and
duffel-coats. For the first time in years I was able to relax. I stopped
stooping and unfolded my arms and started to read the books that I had been
carrying around under my arm as part of my uniform.

Sometimes
my looks were helpful. They got me a job as an office junior in a cardboard box
factory. I had no other qualifications. ‘Take your coat off, dear,’ Mr Ridgely
said. ‘It’s ‘ot in ‘ere.’ I was young and trusting. I took my coat off …
folded my arms. Mr Ridgely’s brow became covered in sweat which he patted dry
with a maroon handkerchief. ‘I tell you what, would you mind standing on my
desk and opening that top window?’

I had
no experience of men. I stood on the desk and was surprised to find that Mr
Ridgely had not moved from his chair. I leaned forward to open the window, an
icy wind rushed into the room and blew papers about. Mr Ridgely was looking up
my skirt. Our eyes met, the maroon handkerchief came out again.

‘Yes,
you’ll do,’ he said. ‘Start on Monday.’

For the
next two years I continued to believe that Mr Ridgely had looked up my skirt
accidentally. I also thought that he was an unusually clumsy man, constantly
brushing against me and falling in my path. Once, when putting up the office
Christmas decorations, he had fallen off a ladder on top of me. We lay sprawled
on the lino, he still on top of me. Mr Ridgely took too long in getting to his
feet.

‘Let’s
just lie like this, together, for a while, shall we?’ he muttered into my neck.
‘I’m tired. I need a rest. My wife is very demanding; she won’t let me sleep.’

Being
very young and stupid I’d thought he meant that his wife insisted on him doing
DI Y until the early hours. I imagined Mr Ridgely insulating his loft by
torchlight.

12
On the Beach

‘Christ, I’m starving!’
said Sidney. ‘How much longer?’

Sidney
and Ruth were sitting in an open-sided shack which was on a beach near to
Albufeira. They had given their order to a distracted middle-aged woman in a
print dress an hour and a half previously. They had not seen her since. A small
child had served them bread, butter and sliced tomatoes. Then the child had
disappeared, shrieking, into the sea.

The
cook, a manic extrovert, wore a sea captain’s hat, a skimpy bathing pouch and
orange flip-flops. During this time he had done no cooking. Instead, he’d been
drawing water from a well in a bucket and throwing the contents over the heads
and tables of his Portuguese customers. His fancy was then to force his sodden
customers to rise to their feet and box with him. After that he embraced them
and shouted for a bottle before sitting down at their wet table to have a
drink.

Ruth
said: ‘It must be a local custom, Sid.’

Sidney
said: ‘If he chucks a bucket of water over me I’ll drop him one. That’s
our
custom
in the East Midlands.’

Ruth
sighed and looked at the view, which was almost as good as the brochure had
promised. There it was: pale yellow sand, dramatic orange rocks, light blue sky
and dark blue sea. The brochure had recommended that they try one of the beach
shack restaurants; the piri-piri chicken was supposed to be ‘mouth-wateringly
good’.

A few
insects fell from the woven grass roof onto Sidney’s head. Ruth watched them scampering
around in his hair, but she didn’t say anything. She was too hot and couldn’t
be bothered. On the other side of the shack the cook rose to his feet, threw
his head back and balanced a glass of brandy on his forehead. A toothless old
woman dressed in black started to clap and soon everyone in the shack, apart
from Sidney and Ruth, was on their feet, swaying and stamping on the crude
boarded floor, encouraging the cook.

‘I’ve
never seen such a show-off,’ whispered Ruth.

Sidney
mouthed: ‘He’s coming over, look away!’

Too
late. The cook was approaching their rickety table for two. Then his brown,
hairy belly was brushing against Ruth’s fair, English arm.

‘OK,
Americans?’ bellowed the cook.

‘No,’
shouted Sidney. ‘We’re not OK, and we’re English and we want our food.’

‘Ah Ingleeshe,
Bobby Charlton — yes?’