White Goods (26 page)

The older boys both
laughed at this. Jim gave Justin one final whack in the balls,
taking a moment to consider his aim, as if he was taking a free
kick at football. Then he left. At first, I thought the other boy –
Rory – had gone with him. From the hole in my cubicle wall, I could
only see Justin: wet, bloody, slumped in front of the urinal. Then,
Rory came back into view.

What he did next was the
worst of it. It was quiet. Almost silent, if not for one
inescapable sound. But it was a deadly act. No one died on that
day, but it acted as a catalyst. A long, slow trigger, letting off
a bullet that was equally slow, prepared to bide its
time.

‘
Don’t forget
to pass on this message to your brother,’ Rory had said, coming
back into view. He was stood over Justin, with his legs apart and,
as I watched from my hidey-hole, I saw a hot stream of urine shoot
down between those legs, aiming at Justin. When he had finished, he
simply zipped up, said a few parting words and left.

I continued to stare out
at the scene. Justin was sopping wet. From head to toe. The piss
had soaked his trousers and his coat, and it was dripping in his
hair, dripping off his face. He just lay there. Staring; staring
right back at me.

There was no mistaking
what Rory had said, just before he left. We had both heard –
Justin’s intense stare told me that. And they made things worse –
the final words he spoke, with the sound of him zipping up just
behind them, like a soundtrack. You see, all their taunts about
Justin washing his hands and being a queer – it wasn’t what they
really thought. It wasn’t why they attacked him. It was just an
excuse, a way to get things going, a way to start the violence.
What Rory said, just before he left, revealed the real reason
behind the attack. Their true purpose.

I stayed where I was for a
few minutes longer – still terrified that the boys were simply
waiting for me to come out and that I would finally get a beating
as well. All the while, Justin continued to stare at me. When I
eventually got off the toilet seat, unlocked the door and stepped
out, Justin had hauled himself off the floor and used a coat sleeve
to wipe his face clear of Rory’s piss.

We looked at each other
and said nothing.

I wanted to say sorry,
that I knew I had let him down, that despite what he did at Nan
Buckley’s I should have stepped in and protected him. Helped him
fight back. But I didn’t say anything. It would have been pointless
and it was far too late.

For a moment, I wondered
if he would say something to me. One of the typical bitchy,
dramatic outbursts he saved for his foes. Or maybe he would hit out
at me – just one slap or punch, just so that I felt some of his
agony too. But he said and did nothing.

Once he was on his feet,
he did exactly what his bullies had originally asked of him: he
washed his hands. He also washed his face and attempted to rinse
out his hair, but it wasn’t really possible. The washer-drier on
the wall wasn’t designed for it.

Then, making himself as
presentable as he could, he left.

I followed him, but I kept
my distance, like he did the day Roy Fallick hit me with the
branch. I stayed in his shadow all the way out of town, until we
reached the top of Victoria Avenue. Then I headed off for my own
house, and Justin headed for his.

We never talked about the
incident. We didn’t talk about what the older boys did to him. And
we didn’t talk about the fact that I was there, hidden, and did
nothing.

But it didn’t go away. It
just waited. When the boy called Rory unzipped his fly, something
was triggered.

And there was something
else. In those words Rory had said. His parting gift.

‘
Don’t forget
to pass this message onto your brother,’
he had said, unzipping, pissing, zipping up again, adding the
final touches with:
‘Tell Ian we still
want that money.’

You see, not only had I
refrained from helping Justin out – I’d also mistakenly let him
take a beating that was meant for me.

‘
Right, we’re
here,’ Ian said, bringing me out of my memory, bringing me back to
our family task: visiting Mum.

I looked ahead. At what
was right in front of me.

‘
Come on,’ Ian
encouraged, a hand at my back, pushing me forward.

It wasn’t a particularly
cold day for February and I felt warm, almost clammy under my new
parka after our walk, but I didn’t take it off. I wanted the
comfort and protection it offered. Instead, I unzipped it a little,
letting in some cool air, still looking ahead.

‘
You did it
last time,’ Della piped up, and I glanced at her, and then ahead
again, at the building in front of me.

Once we had reached the
crematorium, we entered and took the short cut through it, slipping
through a hole in the hedge at the very back, taking us to see
Mum.

Della was right, but as I
stared in front of me - at the building with the bars at every
window – I couldn’t help but feel afraid.

‘
She won’t
bite,’ Ian added, hoping the cliché would help.

Finally, I gave in, and we
walked up the gravelled drive to the reception building, where we
signed ourselves in.

But it wasn’t Mum’s bite I
was afraid of.

It wasn’t her bite that
put her in this place.

11.

The day it happened, the
day Mum left our everyday lives, was like a huge crescendo. Yes, it
was a day in crescendo. It started quiet enough – with a few trips
and enough sparks to give it an edge, to make you a little
suspicious that something was coming. A storm - a storm was coming,
a fierce, seething storm that would whip Mum up and whirl her
wretched remains out the door. But that was later in the day; like
I said, it just started with a few hints of the bitter weather to
come.

Dad was up
and out early; busy that day, he had men to see about
dogs, cats and the odd giraffe,
so he joked
.

‘A right old zoo you got
going there,’ Mum had commented, as he was leaving, taking several
square white boxes from the front room with him.

‘Just
tortoises in here,’ he replied, with a grin. Later, being careful
not to damage the boxes, I opened one: not a tortoise in sight,
just some men’s aftershave and soap sets, with
Burt
misspelt in gold on the front.
Disappointed, I went back up to my room and finished getting ready
for the day.

Della had the accident
with the hair drier that morning; Mum the encounter with the
dishwasher. The dodgy heater from Dontask played its part in the
day, too, as the wild tempest reached its climax.

The cries
from the women of the house came in quick succession, the end of
their sentences overlapping. It started with a
puck
sound; then all the lights went
out and we heard a
bloody-hell
from Della.
Jesus,
bugger
– from Mum, who slipped up in the
kitchen, when the fuse-box blew, and fell into the open dishwasher
door. She stopped her fall with outstretched palms, catching one on
an upturned knife. Cries of frustration and pain echoed across the
house:
Bloody hell, how am I going to get
my hair dry in time? Jesus, Jesus that hurts! Bloody Dad, buying us
cheap crap! Will you stop that moaning, Della, some of us have hurt
ourselves! It’s always about you – I’m supposed to meet Shelley on
the corner in ten minutes - looking like
this
!

‘You alright?’ A voice
spoke out in the calm - Ian’s.

‘Yes,’ I told him. When
the rowing had started, I’d pulled on my old brown parka, zipped it
up to the top, the furred hood cutting out some of their
bickering.

‘Shall we pop to see Nan
in a bit?’ he suggested.

I nodded. Nan
Buckley and a plate of Rich Tea biscuits from her cupboard-kitchen
was just what I needed. A bit of calm and
nonsense-natter,
as Nan called it
herself.

‘Okay. I’ll just sort the
fuse-box first.’

Ten minutes
later, with the lights and associated electrics back on –
Ian, you’re an angel
-
we left the house and headed for Beverley Courts. A flustered,
damp-haired Della was hot on our heels, joining us at the top of St
James Road.

‘Shelley has already
gone,’ she moaned, a little out of breath from running, ‘so I might
as well join you for a lecture on what it was like in the
war.’

We all
grinned at that – Nan Buckley did have a lot to say about the war,
that was true. And despite our joy at the comment, it was
no-laughing-matter,
a
point Nan stressed on the occasions we got the giggles.

Afterwards, we all went
our separate ways: Della into town, Ian back home and me, I snuck
off to meet up with Justin at the dump. But, for the next hour we
stayed together - the three-of-us plus Nan Buckley.

‘Shall we get her
chocolate from the shop?’ I suggested, as we continued on our way,
oblivious to what we had left behind, of what would be gone when we
returned home.

Back at the
house, she thinks about what to do with her day, now the children
and her husband are out the way.
Cleaning,
she thinks, knowing it has
to be done, but wanting to put it off, too.
Dinner,
is her second thought, and
it takes her out of the house, down to the shed, where the deep
chest freezer is stored. Removing the few items that are on its lid
– a damp picnic blanket, several tins of white emulsion – she
throws back the lid and a gasp of cold air escapes from the icy
chest. Delving in with her good right hand – the left is still sore
from the dishwasher incident – she feels her way to the bottom and
finds what she is looking for: a packet of beef sausages.
They’ll defrost in time,
she tells herself, hoping she’s right, as she has nothing
else to serve them. She presses the freezer down, creating a
paff
sound as the seals
connect, leaves the shed and makes her way back up to the
house.

She gets as far as
placing the frozen food on a plate, when she realises she is not
alone. She is in the kitchen; he is standing in the doorway that
leads to the back room.

‘Jesus!’ she cries, hands
going up to her heart in surprise, as if she needs to keep it
steady and putting her hands there will help. ‘How long have you
been there?’

‘Not long.’

‘And how did you get in?
You’re not supposed to come here. You know that. You must leave.
You need to go now! Now! What if Tony comes back? He’ll be back any
minute! And the kids! Jesus, the kids mustn’t see you! You mustn’t
see them!’

As she speaks, the storm
has begun to rumble. For now, it is just her words, just a rising
in her voice, the rhythm picking up, the panic creeping
in.

‘I need some
money.’

Unlike hers, his voice is
calm; cold in fact.

‘I told you last time,’
she replies, trying to keep her voice level, trying to replicate
his composed exterior. But it is an effort, and soon she is rushing
again, a flood of words gushing out. ‘I told you, I made it clear.
I’m not bailing you out again! I can’t! I don’t have any spare
money. And if I did, if Tony found out, he’d kill me! So, you have
to leave! Get out! I can’t have you here! Get out! Out!’

But he doesn’t move.
Stands in the doorway. And he’s grinning. He’s actually grinning;
mocking her fury.

A fuse goes. Somewhere
inside her. Just for a second, like a switch going off and then
back on again. A heart stop. Yes, her heart stops for just a
second. On/off. On again.

She checks him. He still
has that grin on his face.

‘I don’t know why you are
looking so pleased with yourself,’ she tells him, waiting for her
switch to go again; she can feel it coming, feel it flickering.
‘You’ve blown it this time. You realise? You should never have come
here! So, this is it. This is the last time. I don’t want to see
you again! I should never have agreed to see you in the first
place! Not after what you did! So, get out! Get out! GET
OUT!!!’

She doesn’t know how she
gets there, how she makes it forward – maybe it was when her heart
stopped again, maybe her mind had blacked out too – but suddenly
she is upon him. Shouting, screaming in his face, her hands,
including her sore one, are crunched to fists and she is pummelling
his chest, unleashing a fury that is alien to her. He laughs
throughout the attack, eventually grabbing her wrists and holding
her back from him.

The switch flicks again.
On/off. On again. She stops, studies him, sees a change. He’s still
calm, but the grinning has stopped and his eyes – raspberry-rippled
through lack of sleep – are burning into her.

‘Always were a silly
bitch, weren’t you? A stupid silly bitch, thinking you were
something better than the rest of them. Your husband sells knock
off gear out of his own front room, and you still think you’re
better than the rest?’