Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘Bloody hell,’ Maude exclaimed, her head whipping around. ‘What the… ?! ’ Kane gasped, and then, ‘ Gaffar? GAFFAR?! ’ He ran a couple of steps down the embankment, waving his arms, but they’d already high-tailed it.

‘You know them?’

‘Uh…yeah.’

Kane tugged on his ear-lobe, bemused, still staring blankly down the road as a second vehicle swung by (but at a rather more sedate pace, this time). It was a large, dark-green Rover and Isidore sat at its wheel; ramrod-straight, hatchet-jawed, insanely focussed on the road ahead.

This was all the incentive Kane needed. ‘Gotta go,’ he threw down his cigarette and turned, instinctively, to follow.

‘I hope you don’t make a habit of doing that,’ Maude clucked, sticking out her foot and extinguishing the stub with the heel of her old hiking boot.

‘Think you can get your car to start?’ he yelled, over his shoulder. ‘Yeah. It’ll be the plugs. I’ll just dry them off. It’ll be…’

She grimaced. ‘It’ll be fine ,’ she sniped.

But he was already well out of earshot.

‘It was KAAAAAANE! ’ Kelly screamed, repeatedly smacking Gaffar’s back with her Bible as they hurtled around the roundabout. ‘ KAAAAAAAANE! ’

‘ Huh? ’ Gaffar glanced over his shoulder.

‘We gotta STOP! ’

Gaffar promptly applied the brakes.

‘Not on the fuckin’ ROUNDABOUT, you LOON! ’

Gaffar accelerated again.

‘We’re LOST. We need to get back on to the MAIN ROAD… ’ Kelly pointed to the relevant turn-off, but Gaffar had already shot past it.

‘BALLS! Harve ain’t gonna sit around waitin’ all fuckin’ DAY, you DICK!’

Kelly took a swipe at his helmet this time. Gaffar ducked to avoid it and the scooter wobbled, precariously.

‘ WAAAH! ’

They took the roundabout again (still wobbling) and somehow managed to exit correctly, circling back up on to the A2070 where they rapidly rejoined the Bad Munstereifel section of the busy dual carriageway.

Kelly took out her mobile and attempted to dial her uncle as they sped along it.

‘WHERE NOW? ’ Gaffar bellowed.

‘SHUT UP! I’m just tryin’a ring HARVE to FIND OUT, you PILLOCK!’

They were fast approaching another roundabout.

‘I can’t get any fuckin’…WOAAHH! ’

Kelly clung on tightly as they commenced the turn. Then–

‘Head STRAIGHT! ’ she yelled, pointing, ‘ an’ PULL OVER! We need to get …’

They exited on to Malcolm Sargent Road.

‘ STOP! ’ she yelled. ‘ STOP!! DOUBLE-QUICK! BY THE VAN! ’

Gaffar careered in towards the pavement, braking hard. Kelly jolted forward on the seat, her forehead smacking into the back of his helmet. ‘ OW! ’

As they drew to a halt she leaned over sideways and spewed a neat, semi-translucent mouthful of bile into the gutter. A man was standing nearby, taping a poster on to a street light. He turned.

‘Little Kelly Broad ,’ he exclaimed, strolling over with a beaming smile. ‘Well here’s a turn-up!’

He shoved his hand into his pocket, withdrew a tissue and handed it to her. Kelly snatched the tissue, thrusting him her Bible, in exchange. He took it and inspected it, quizzically, as she patted at her mouth, groaning. She was a pale shade of lilac.

‘That must’ve been some ride, kid,’ he observed, shooting Gaffar a disapproving look.

‘Butt out , Garry,’ Kelly snapped (every inch the stroppy teenager), then, ‘How’s that?’ She peered up at him, owlishly. He gazed down at her, frowning. Her entire face was streaked in black spider-legs of mascara.

‘Uh…well you’ve still got a little bit of…’ he pointed ‘… you know…around the eye area.’

‘What?’

‘The Panda Effect I think they like to call it.’

‘ Mascara? ’

She patted, ineffectually, at her cheeks.

‘It’s more…uh…more general …’

She handed him the tissue, scowling. ‘Just wipe it off, then, will ya?’

‘Me?’

He looked alarmed.

‘Yeah. Just dab it off. Go on,’ she bullied him, ‘don’t take all year about it.’

‘Bloody hell …’

He spat on the tissue and gently commenced dabbing. Kelly — rather surprisingly, Gaffar felt — lifted her small chin into the air, and received his attentions, uncomplainingly, like a small girl having her face cleaned by an attentive nanny after devouring an over-sized sundae at a fair.

Gaffar pushed up his visor and peered over at the stranger, suspiciously. He was a short, burly, middle-aged man with an unruly mop of frizzy brown hair (receding a little at the crown), a keen pair of light-green eyes (fringed by disarmingly long and curly lashes) set in a rough, wide, distinctly gnomish face.

‘This here is Garry Spivey, Gaff,’ Kelly informed him.

‘ Eh? ’

‘My Uncle Harvey’s Best Mucker…’ she grinned.

‘ That’d be the day, Kell.’

Garry rolled his green eyes, long-sufferingly.

Kelly pointed. ‘I thought I recognised that clapped-out old van of yours, Gaz. Still too tight to get yourself somethin’ proper?’ ‘If it ain’t broke,’ Garry shrugged. ‘The old girl’s still doin’ me pretty good service…’

‘That’s an old Dodge, Gaff,’ Kelly explained. ‘It’s Yank-made. Though it’s hard to tell through all the layers of Hammerite… ’

Gaffar shrugged.

‘Like a fuckin’ tank , it is,’ Kelly expanded. ‘Gas-powered, ain’t it, Gaz?’ ‘Yup.’

Kelly shook her head. ‘There’s a canister-thing in the back, Gaff, an’ this tiny, little pipe which feeds through to the motor. Someone ever rams him from behind an’ he’ll go up like a fuckin’ Catherine Wheel.’

Gaffar didn’t respond. He watched Garry closely as he dabbed away, tenderly, at Kelly’s face with his huge, intensely callused, workman’s hands.

‘This takes me right back, Kell,’ Garry chuckled.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah. Remember how I used to pick you up when you was hangin’ around outside that Print Works near the Sports Ground with those older kids after school, give you a quick clip around the ear for smokin’ weed an’ drive you straight home?’

‘Drop me off at the end of the street?’ Kelly smirked. ‘You was a pest , Gaz, straight up. Always stickin’ your oar in where it wasn’t wanted. Ruined my bloody social life, you did. You was worse than my bloody dad …’

Kelly suddenly faltered, embarrassed, ‘I mean…I mean not like that …’

She blushed.

‘There was this one time I remember,’ Garry prattled on (keen not to dwell on the negative stuff), ‘when you had blood all down your top from a nose-bleed some boy had given ya, an’ you didn’t want your mum to find out, so I took you home an’ Stephanie shoved it in the washer…’

‘How is Steph?’ Kelly enquired (determined to change the subject). ‘I ain’t seen her around town in a while.’

‘Good,’ Garry responded, almost too brightly. ‘ Very good, as it happens. Just found out she’s expectin’ wiv’ her new partner. She actually moved up to Stoke last year, to be closer to her sister.’

‘ Huh? ’ Kelly frowned, confused, then the penny dropped. ‘ Oh … Right . Well give her my best when you speak to her.’

‘Will do, Kell.’

He continued dabbing.

‘Nearly done?’ she enquired.