Kate Tempest - The Bricks that Built the Houses

Harry puts a cigarette between his lips, lights it for him, slaps him gently on the cheeks. ‘You’ll be OK,’ she says. ‘You’ll be fine, mate.’

She does her coat up, picks up her briefcase. Leon shakes his head at her, puts a finger to his lips and leads her towards the fire escape he’d seen earlier.

The cold of the night shocks them back to feeling. They say nothing, walk as fast as they can without running. Then it’s keys, car door, the squeak as it opens, the squeak as it closes. Leon’s in the front, Harry’s in the back. They pull away without turning the lights on, watching out for the bullies. They get to the end of the road. Lights on, they cross the junction, left at the roundabout; they slide away into the night.

Leon’s eyes shine in the rear-view. He turns his head. Harry, body rigid, feels Leon turning, looks towards him, their eyes meet briefly. The hint of a smile. Leon looks back to the road. Both take a deep breath in, before crumpling under an all-consuming, childlike laughter that lays Harry flat on the back seat.

‘FUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK!’ Leon hits the steering wheel with the heel of his hands.

‘You’re a fucking nutcase, Leon.’ Harry lies across the seats, one leg up, knee bent, the other in the footwell. Catching her breath. She pulls herself back up. It’s a struggle; the remnants of laughter in her muscles make her weak.

‘He was trying to do us over, mate. Or hadn’t you fucking noticed?’

Harry rubs her face. After the laughter the reality hits her; nausea and adrenalin butt heads in her gut like raging bulls.

‘I shouldn’t have taken the money.’ Harry’s voice is low and haunted, full of dread. She hits the back of the seats with open palms.

Leon shakes his head. Speaks calmly. ‘You did what you had to do.’

‘This is gonna be trouble, Leon.’ A tightness in her throat, her tone rising. Anger coming in at the edges.

‘What do you wanna do? Go back? Put it all back?’ Leon watches her briefly in the rear-view.

The city swims out the windows, unchanged.

‘Fuck,’ Harry says, full of new fear. ‘Fuck fuck fuck fuck.’ But her excitement is washing and dressing, preparing itself to step out into the world; the cash packed tight inside her shirt, her jacket lining, down her waistband, these bundles of cash are real. She bends her head, closes her eyes. Counts to ten. Opens, smiling a strange smile.

‘FUCK OFF!’ she shouts, grabbing the back of Leon’s seat. ‘What we gonna do now, Leon?’ Her voice is cracking with emotion.

‘I don’t know, Harry,’ Leon replies, his voice steadier, but higher than usual. ‘I don’t have a fucking clue.’

It’s five in the morning. The lights are on in Giuseppe’s. The blinds are drawn but the glow from the bulbs is creeping through the slats, slanting like jazzmen in zoot suits across the dark street.

Ron is sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, furthest from the door. Big head leant back against the wall, legs stretched out straight, crossed at the ankles. His hands are covering his face. One elbow leans on the table and keeps sliding away from him. He looks shaken by something, solid frame hollowed, even his usually perky belly is sinking towards the floor. Ron’s brown hair is messed up, sticking out from his head, parted awkwardly. He keeps running his hands through it and now it stands up tall like a breaking wave.

His brother, Rags, is sitting on the other side of the room, one foot up on the chair in front of him, making them both another drink. They are silent for a minute. Two.

‘Will I lose this place?’ Ron asks his brother. Voice thick with drink.

‘I don’t think so,’ Rags tells him gently.

Rags is taller than his brother and better-looking. Broad brow, straight nose, shining dark-green eyes. The stubble of a hard night starting to bristle, badger-like, across his jaw. His chin juts pleasantly. He watches his brother with the same harrowing love he has always watched him with. He has always felt the desperation to improve Ron’s life, and the misery that comes from not being able to protect anyone from themselves.

‘I will lose it.’ Ron is on the brink of tears, voice rising to a whine. ‘Pico will come down like a ton of bricks on everyone, and I’m going to lose this place. My lifeline. He’s going to take it from me.’ His voice collapses. His face falls further into his hands.

‘Not going to happen, mate,’ Rags says. ‘If you’d just let me tell you what went on, then you’d see.’

‘I DON’T WANT TO KNOW,’ Ron shouts, words wet in his mouth. ‘I don’t want to know what happened. I can see the end and it’s coming and it’s now, and I don’t want to fucking KNOW. So don’t fucking even think about telling me.’

‘Fair enough,’ Rags says simply, fully aware that it’s not about trying to calm his brother down. Better to just wait for him to calm himself. He gets up and walks to the sink where a bag of ice sits in cold water. He puts two cubes in each glass and returns to his seat. Ron is breathing loudly with his nose crushed against his hands. Rags pours two large gins, enjoys the way the ice crackles.

‘Got any gear on you, Rags?’ Ron says from beneath his hands.

‘Not for you, you don’t do it any more.’ Rags speaks to the gins.

‘I’m drunk,’ Ron proclaims tragically. His elbow slips away, he brings it back to where he wants it.

‘So what?’ Rags begins juicing a lemon into a glass with a fork.

‘I can’t stay awake any more unless I have a line,’ Ron says, explaining it carefully, like an important clue in a puzzling mystery. ‘If I don’t have a line I’m going to fall asleep.’

‘You’re all talk.’ Rags holds the lemon-juice glass up to his face and searches for pips with a narrowed eye.

‘You won’t be saying that when I vomit all over the floor and you have to clear it up because I’ve passed out.’ Ron’s elbow slips away from him again, his armpit falls flat against the table. He leaves it there, defeated.

‘You really want one?’ Rags finds two pips, and levers them out with his fork.

‘Don’t make me fucking beg.’

Rags looks at him. ‘Alright,’ he says, ‘here y’are then.’ He takes a hard wrap out of his jeans pocket and goes to throw it at Ron.

‘Don’t throw it,’ Ron says from behind his hands, without looking. ‘Stand up and bring it over.’

‘You stand up and come and get it,’ Rags says to him, turning his attention to the bag of brown sugar beside the glasses.

‘I can’t,’ Ron says. ‘Don’t make me do that.’ Ron is still hiding his face, pushing the comforting darkness of his hands against his spinning eyes. ‘I’m your little brother,’ he slurs delicately. ‘Protect me.’

‘There you go, invoking blood, only when you need a favour.’ Rags measures an exact teaspoonful of sugar and adds it to the cocktail.

‘When else should you invoke it?’ Ron asks him.

‘Every day of your miserable life, Ronald Shogovitch. Either that, or never at all,’ he tells him, stirring furiously. Smiling at the effort.

Ron takes a deep breath and pulls his hands away from his face and sits there, exposed suddenly, blinking. He closes his eyes, opens them slowly, testing the waters. Gradually, moaning, he gets to his feet and walks over to sit opposite his brother. With clumsy, heavy hands he goes about cutting the gack into thick, messy lines. Rags says nothing, keeps his attention fixed firmly on the gin fizzes.

At last, Ron sniffs his line and coughs and sits back and waits for his vision to sharpen up. He thinks he sees a shadow cross the threshold of the window. ‘Is the door locked, yeah?’ he asks.