I lay in the rubble and stared and blinked. There was a hand on the ground; roughly severed, bone protruding, two fingers broken, twisted back.
I pulled myself from the rubble, hunkered down and inspected it. I placed my hand on the ground next to it and saw how small my hand was. I crawled my hand over the rubble and onto the hand and I felt it. It was cold and hard, like plastic. I turned it over. The palm was blackened. The fingertips were torn. I pulled off a dangling shred of skin. I took the hand. I locked my fingers between its fingers and I took it, I picked it up and shoved it in my waistband, tying my string belt tight so it stayed put so it was hidden so the man couldn’t see I had treasure. The treasure was mine. Cold and plastic, it’s mine.
I picked up my scooter. It was still working, but scratched and squint, so I had to work out all over again how to ride and not fall head over heels, and off I went home with Monsta and treasure. On our way I saw a bunch of kids crowded round a water tank.
‘What’s all the fuss about?’ I said, pushing my way in. ‘What’s all the fuss?’
This little runt of a kid, even runtier than me, he said, ‘There’s a body in the tank.’
I looked down at the kid, all aloof, rolling my eyes, and I said, ‘Kid, there’s dead bodies everywhere.’
I pushed in further to have a look, just to see the kid wasn’t lying, and there it was – the truth of it – a girl, a dirty white dress face down just floating, a tiny thing, her dirty blond hair all raggedy and tangled floating out like a messed up halo, a dirty little holy girl with no shoes and sores on her feet and bruises on her legs and a homemade boat bobbing through her tangled hair. I stepped away and said, ‘What’s all the fuss? Dead bodies everywhere.’
I pulled the severed hand out from my waistband and said to the crowd of kids, ‘But this, this is special.’
They gathered round me, forgetting the girl in the tank as I held the hand aloft and said it would cost them if they wanted to feel it and hold it.
‘This is the hand of a monster. Look at the black skin, black as night, and there’s flaps of skin hanging off the fingertips. When the monster was alive, the skin would open up and it would ooze poison. The monster would grab you and put poison in your body, in your blood, and you’d die and it would eat you but maybe it would eat you even before the poison made you die, it’d eat you alive.’
Some of the kids made noises of disgust, others pushed in and said, ‘Let’s see it then, let’s see the monster hand.’
‘You can touch it, you can feel it,’ I said, ‘and I’ll tell you the terrible story…’ and I filled my pockets full of coins, buttons, and battered sweets, until along came Doris who clipped me round the ear. Old Doris was so enraged she couldn’t get out any words, her face just puffed up as she hit me round the side of the head, snatching the hand from my hand.
She held it, her rage turning to disgust and she let out a startled yelp, dropping the hand at her feet. It rocked for a moment, like an upturned crab. The kids all scattered and before I could run off, Doris had me by the arm, pinching, hitting at my head again, my ears ringing.
Old Doris was a tank. She always could give a good hiding. She’d beat off the Germans single-handed, I thought to myself. She’d beat them off even if she had her hands all cut off. She pinched harder and I squinted at Monsta who lay fallen next to the hand.
‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ she said, pulling at me by the ear, forcing me to look at her big tank of a face. ‘Have some respect.’
She let me go and I dropped to the ground next to Monsta, who swayed, unconcerned.
‘I can’t count,’ I said to Monsta, ‘how many times people have said to me, “Don’t you know there’s a bleedin’ war on?”’
‘What’s that?’ Doris said. ‘You giving me cheek?’
‘I said I know there’s a war on.’
‘You don’t act like it. You get home and you behave like a proper girl, you hear me? You wait till I see your mother.’
‘Yeah, I’ll wait, you can wait, we all can wait.’
She leaned down, her big face right at mine.
‘You’ve always been an oddball. You know that?’
‘I know, I know, of course I know, we all know, and doncha know? There’s a bleedin’ war on. We all know.’
‘Get!’ she said, and I pulled myself up, grabbing Monsta, grabbing at the hand. I scrambled over to the water tank, where I’d dropped my scooter but it was gone, one of the kids had taken it, so I was running instead, running like I had an incendiary up my arse.
‘I know where you live!’ old Doris yelled after me. ‘I’ll be having a word with your mum, you devil!’
‘No Devils here,’ I said to Monsta, and I ran and ran until we got to our house and I collapsed at the door, the money and buttons and sweets weighing heavy in my pockets and I thought of the number of times people have said to me, you’re an oddball, you’re a strange one, you really are a queer one, the number of times I’ve lost count and I said, breathing heavy, ‘Monsta, we don’t belong here. I don’t know where we belong, but not here.’
I crawled my way into the house and turned my pockets inside out and out sprayed all the treasure. I rummaged through it. I thought of old Doris and her threats and I thought, I’m free as a bird, with no parents to tell anything to. I’m free as a bird and who cares about that old tank Doris.
I hadn’t eaten all day, except some bread at breakfast and my stomach growled like a monster.
‘I could eat the whole of London, Monsta, I truly could,’ I said, looking at my treasure. ‘But sweets won’t do it, I’ll make us a feast to end all feasts!’
I made us all dinner, me and Monsta, Groo, Billy Bones, Dr Kemp, and Captain Flint. Monsta and I had boiled potatoes, corned beef and some cheese, which we shared with Groo. I gave the chickens lettuce and cereal. Captain Flint had some of the corned beef and a bit of apple too, but he was mostly good at catching his own dinner – worms and insects from the garden – so I usually only fed him as a treat. We feasted like kings that night, sick and fat and roly-poly with our dinner in our bellies, like big fat barrage balloon slug-kings.
‘Ugh, I’m stuffed. I’m full to popping.’
I slapped my belly and you could still see my ribs from when I travelled back from the sea.
The next morning I got on with making a new scooter and took the hand to Kensal Green Cemetery. I took it there to bury it and on my way I stopped and charged all the kids for a look making sure I kept a hold of my scooter to scooter away if trouble was in sight. The older kids, the ones I couldn’t pummel, they looked at me all squint-eyed oi boy whatcha doin? and I got on my scooter with my pockets full of treasure and went to the in-between realm where I dug a hole for the hand.
I put some pennies on the hand and said our lizard who art in the darkness below hallowed be thy name consecrate this hand unto the earth and may it rest in peace, amen.
I got more food in, but this time I was careful. I kept some locked away instead of having a feast and being fat like a slug on the floor and we, me and Monsta and the rest of the family, we ate together every day, just us, until the police came and they said about the river. It was finished. Our life in this house was over. No more just me and the animal family. Our lizards who art in the darkness below why hast thou forsaken me? Boy, they said. Boy? You hear what I’m saying? It must be a shock, but we can help. Hallowed be thy name, hallowed be thy name. Boy, it’s going to be alright. Can you hear me? It’s going to be alright. But it wasn’t. They were going to take me away.