Stevan Alcock - Blood Relatives

‘Who?’ barked Grandma Betty, stabbing the air wi’ her forefinger. ‘Who brought him in!?’ Grandma Betty had her frosty side all right, but never before had I seen her face all screwed up like a ball of paper.

‘No idea,’ the dour nurse stuttered. ‘Whoever it wor didn’t leave a name, and I wor on my break anyway.’

We plonked oursens on plastic chairs and waited. Except for Mitch, who stayed in t’ Austin Cambridge, engine idling cos he said the ignition wor faulty. It had been just fine yesterday. Mother wor clutching her handbag like it might float away. Grandma had both hands wrapped around a plastic cup of hot tea, her lips pressed tightly together.

We waited an age, watching people drift by. Sitting opposite me wor a tramp wi’ a gash on his hand. He wor mumbling and scratching his chest hairs furiously beneath his half-open shirt. He stank like a mouldy cheese. Two seats to his right sat a nervous Asian woman in a cerise sari and a brown anorak, rockin’ a bawling baby.

Grandma wor muttering under her breath, ‘I know who it wor, I know!’

When I asked who, she shook her head and blew her nose on a tissue that Mother passed to her.

After an age, an African doctor came up to us and ushered us all into a side room, where, he said in a cantering voice, it would be quieter.

21/01/1976

‘Seducing a woman,’ Eric wor saying, ‘is like throwing a pot.’

It wor t’ arse end of January, and after t’ frenzy of pre-Christmas sales the soft-drinks trade had gone belly-up. We wor running light and ahead of schedule. So here we wor, parked up in Spencer Place, Chapeltown, heart of t’ red-light area, scoffing chip butties and watching rivulets of rainwater scurry down t’ windscreen. I worn’t in no hurry today. The Matterhorn Man wor up in Glasgow, visiting his sick mother. Eric held his chip butty in front of his gob, undecided about how to attack it.

‘To start wi’,’ he said, spraying breadcrumbs as he spoke, ‘it’s all shapeless, and you don’t know if owt will come of it, she wobbles unsure in your hands. Then, if you’re workin’ it right, she yields and starts to take shape, until …’

‘… You’ve made an urn?’

‘Ha, bloody ha. Listen to Eric and learn, lad. There ain’t nowt I can’t teach you about that mysterious being called womankind.’

Eric’s other favoured analogy wor t’ lightbulb and the iron. In t’ world according to Eric, a man is turned on like a lightbulb, but a woman heats up more slowly, like an iron. He said it wor his dad’s explanation of t’ birds and the bees. Lightbulbs and irons.

‘What if you’ve got two irons? Or two lightbulbs?’

Eric licked the salt off his lips and tossed the crumpled chip paper into t’ road.

‘Two lightbulbs? What kind of skewed thinking is that? You’d blow a bloody fuse, that’s what. Two bloody lightbulbs indeed. Sounds a bit peculiar, a bit daft. A bit queer, if yer ask me.’

I flushed. I’d been blowing fuses on every visit to t’ Matterhorn Man.

On my third, or maybe fourth visit, we’d lain in bed afterward listening to Velvet Underground on t’ record player. Jim wor idly stroking my head and smokin’ a ciggie when he asked me if I ever had any problem wi’ what we wor doing. I just laughed.

‘It wor Maxwell Confait,’ I said. ‘He wor t’ one.’

‘Eh?’

So I told him about how, late one evening, I wor slumped on t’ living-room rug in my pyjamas after my bath, one eye on t’ telly, t’other on t’ music paper beside me. Mother wor mulling over a competition where you had to write a slogan to win a caravan at Skegness. The late-night regional news drifted into a documentary about t’ murder of some male prostitute called Maxwell Confait.

‘I pity people like that,’ Mother said, raising her eyes toward t’ small screen. Then she told me to move, cos I wor blocking all t’ heat from t’ gas fire.

I shuffled back a tad and reread some Black Sabbath tour dates. But really my lugs wor glued to t’ smug, southern voice of t’ reporter, who wor saying that Maxwell Confait wor ‘a self-confessed homosexual who was murdered in South-East London’, and that three teenage lads had been charged wi t’ murder. One of t’ lads wor only fourteen year old, same as me.

It wor like a firework had been lobbed into t’ living room. I remember thinking, clear as daylight, ‘That’s me he’s talking about. That’s me. I fancy boys.’

It befuddled me that anyone my age could commit murder. What wor that about? Adults murdered, kids got murdered. Like that Myra Hindley and that bloke that murdered loads of kids and buried ’em up on t’ moors.

All t’ while Mother wor pretending to be reading her magazine, but I knew she wor listening an’ all, cos she kept clicking her ballpoint on and off. Then, when I saw his face on t’ telly a strange thrill coursed through me.

Jim sat up against t’ bedhead. ‘It did?’

‘Aye. He had these big, pleading eyes and unkempt hair and this black gash for lips. Cos we hadn’t got our colour telly then. But I knew. At that moment, I just knew.’

‘Well,’ Jim exhaled, ‘if I recall rightly, they were all acquitted in the retrial.’

I turned over in t’ bed to ease the pressure on my elbow. ‘Since then, I’ve always thought that one day I’ll be a famous pop star, or be murdered. Or a famous pop star who gets murdered. Or a pop star who gets murdered and then becomes famous.’

Jim laughed and tousled my hair. ‘Just don’t end up like poor Janis. All washed up on heroin.’

Eric started up the engine, let it idle over. ‘Come on, we’ve enough time. Let’s call on Vanessa, if she ain’t too busy. Then we can have a quick cuppa, all right?’

It worn’t good to get too far ahead of schedule. Harehills and Chapeltown before lunch, then on to t’ big housing estates of Belle Isle, Gipton and Halton Moor in t’ afternoon, then finally the tower blocks and maisonettes up Seacroft way. Too early, or too late, and sales would be lost. And Craner wor intent on improving sales. Even a push on malt vinegar had failed to revive the flagging figures.

We pulled up outside Vanessa’s, and Eric headed in while I waited in t’ van.

It must have been a grand house once, but now it wor in a very sorry state. The stone wor sooty and pitted, the rotting gutters all clogged wi’ wet leaves, the paintwork flaking away. A board had been nailed across one of t’ etched panes of coloured glass in t’ front door. In t’ overgrown garden, a few spindly roses soldiered on.

Eric reappeared in t’ porch. ‘Bring a bottle of Coke!’

I fished one off the van and strolled up to t’ house, tossing and catching it as if it wor a baton.

As I pushed the door wi’ my shoulder a breeze gusted in, lifting the hallway linoleum at its edges.

Vanessa lived on t’ ground floor. I paused in t’ hallway at the foot of t’ stairs, my eye following the sweep of t’ banister rail upward into t’ gloom, my nostrils twitching to t’ stale traces of over-fried and boiled food, my ears hearing the steady plopping from t’ laundry slung over t’ banisters.

Although Vanessa’s door wor open, I knocked anyway and entered without waiting.

‘Here he is!’

I set the coke bottle on t’ sideboard, parked mesen on one arm of her grubby sofa.

Vanessa wor a big woman wi’ matted strawberry-blonde hair and a round, pocked face. I tried not to stare at t’ folds of pale skin slithering from her faded pink halterneck dress. Worn’t she cold? I dunked my teabag as she gabbled on in her brittle voice, talking about business mostly. All t’ while she kept one eye on t’ street, t’other on t’ nipper in plastic pants that wor shuffling itsen toward me across t’ lino floor. Vanessa crossed her plump legs and let one shoe dangle. Her feet wor deformed by years of stilettos. Chips of red varnish on her toenails.