Russell Birch looked up at his former brother-in-law, into those impenetrable dark glasses. All he could say was, — Okay, Craig –
— If you ever fucking call me that again, I’ll tear yir stupid heid oaf. Ma name’s Seeker. Say it!
And it was. How could he have been so stupid? It was Seeker. Always Seeker. — Sorry … sorry, Seeker, he coughed, feeling like his stomach had been torn open.
— Right, now git the fuck ootay ma sight.
Russell Birch groped for the door handle in the swimming twilight. Fear was working through his pain and he was out of there. Out, out, out.
Thawing
Seventh Floor
I DON’T MIND Mark dossing here, he’s a decent geezer, but I ain’t sure about the fella he’s brought with him. Swans around like he owns the place, and that’s when he’s here, which thankfully ain’t that often. Fack knows what he gets up ta.
It all makes things a little tense first thing in the mornings, specially as I ain’t been sleeping too soundly of late. The one big problem with this flat is that we’re next to the rubbish chute. Bottles and all sorts go crashing past me head inside that wall, hurtling down that farking chute into the big garbage bin, and at all hours.
This morning ain’t no exception to the uptight vibe; I get up to find that other cunt, Sick Boy by name and Sick Boy by nature, sitting at the window with a plate of toast. — Good morning, Nicksy, he snaps, then, surveying the manor, with that bleedin look on his boat, — Hackney: not exactly a great part of town, is it? he says, like he was expecting farking Buck House or something.
— You’re welcome ta find another, I tell the cunt.
And he just turns ta me, cocky as ya like, — Rest assured, I’m working on it.
Cheeky fucker. And I heard he’s ruffled a few feathers down the local n all. I ain’t got much time for blokes who think they’re better than anyone else, like they’re the only ones full of big ideas and dodgy scams. And it ain’t like he’s had me up stayin at his Jockland shithole, so a little bit of respect is called for.
And it ain’t so bad on this estate. There’s a lot worse tower blocks round here than Beatrice Webb House. Even up on the seventh floor we get a decent view; right across Queensbridge Road and over to London Fields. And the lifts usually work; well, they did yesterday. The gaff ain’t brilliant, but I’ve dossed in worse. I inherited a gigantic American-style fridge-freezer which takes up half the kitchen, not that there’s ever anything in it. I got my own room, and there’s mattresses in the spare bedroom for the lads to crash on.
At least this Sick Boy cunt actually gets up. Ain’t having a go at Mark, but he does a lot of farking kipping; he’s just surfaced now, squinting and rubbing sleep from his eyes, and it’s nearly one o’clock. He picks up a video box from on top of the telly and goes, — Ah prefer Chuck Norris tae Van Damme.
Sick Boy looks at the cunt like he’s farking tapped. — I’m sure you would, Renton. I’m absolutely certain you would, he says, now sitting in the kitchen at the table, writing on a series of cards, in a very neat, deliberate hand. He’s got his back turned, so we can’t cop a butcher’s. Not that we give a toss what the cunt’s up ta. Mark flops back on the couch and picks up the Orwell novel he’s been reading: A Clergyman’s Daughter. It was the first proper book I read at school, after the dyslexia got diagnosed and I started ta get help. Didn’t matter that it was about five times the size of everybody else’s text and I got the farking piss ripped outta me for being a div, I just loved it. Orwell was the bollocks. Way I see it, the cunt ain’t ever been equalled.
— Apparently there’s still a bit of a drought up the road, skag-wise,
Sick Boy says, absent-mindedly. — I called Matty the other day. He was rattling like a panda in a Chinese takeaway.
Matty: now there’s a top geezer. Wish it was him Rents brought down. Would’ve been like the old days back in Shepherd’s Bush. Good times, they was. Rents briefly turns to eyeball Sick Boy’s hawklike profile, then goes back to the book.
So I’ve been treading water: putting up with Scotch geezers, but thinking of Marsha upstairs.
I catch the bleedin awful pong coming from the kitchen. The flat smells like a farking bear pit, and that’s probably an insult to the ursine race, who seem quite a tidy bunch when all’s said and done. Mark puked in there, chasing too much brown, the cunt, and he ain’t cleaned it up, and him and Sick Boy are arguing about it. — I’ll sort it, he says, but without looking like he’s in any big hurry ta do it. Fucking well turned his nose up at the brown first n all, he did, said it couldn’t be proper skag; went on about how it was white back home. Can’t get enough now though, the cunt.
I’ve had it here; I leave my filthy Jock guests and exit into a cold, crisp, fresh day, filling my lungs with air and instantly feeling better. Heading towards the market, I scans Marsha’s sister, Yvette, a big fat gel, who looks nothing like her, outside the overland station on Kingsland Road. — Alright?
— Yeah, sound.
— How’s Marsha?
— She’s restin, innit. Ain’t been well. Yvette shifts her weight onto one leg and a heavy tit almost seems ready to spill out from her blouse like a slinky.
— Sorry to hear that …
Yvette’s got that Jamaican-London thing going on. — She naht told you, has she? she says, as she makes the reparations to her top, pullin her coat tight.
— Told me wot?
— Nothing … it’s nothing. Just women’s problems.
— She ain’t talkin ta me. I need ta see her. I just wanna know what I done wrong, that’s all.
Yvette shakes her head. — Leave it, Nicksy. If she don wanna know ya, she don wanna know ya. Ya won’t change her, she says, then gives a little chuckle to herself and repeats, — Nah, mon, ya won’t change her.
I shrugs and leaves the fat gel, thinkin that it ain’t as if I’m out for changin anybody, I’m a no-questions-asked sort of geezer normally. After all, I’m still a young man, and she’s a very young gel. Seventeen. Older in some ways, but younger in others. With a two-year-old son, little Leon. Lovely little kid.
I ain’t met the little chap’s old man, and maybe he’s back on the scene; I dunno if he’s got any claims on her. All she would say when I broached the subject was, — Nah, it’s all cool, man.
Cause I know the lie of the land; I certainly ain’t enough of a farking div to step on some big spade’s territory. The white man’s long moved out to the Shires; bar a few pockets like Bermondsey (and them Millwall cunts don’t count), inner London’s pretty much ruled by the spade and the yuppie. It sometimes feels as if the likes of us are just farking guests in our own city. You gotta behave yourself, and besides, wars over skirt: you can forget it.
But I really thought that me and her had something. Then I thought about how a lot of people, black and white, don’t like the idea of a white geezer and a black bird getting it on. One day it won’t matter a fuck; we’ll all be coffee-coloured with a tint of yellow. Till then we got a load of grief ta get through.
Bad Circulation
THANK GOD THAT wee Maria lassie is safely back at her Uncle Murray’s in Nottingham. I found her a couple ay weeks ago, a total mess, begging up the Bridges, when I was heading back fae work, so I brought her wi me tae Johnny’s. But she freaked when we got tae the stair; said she’d been here before, and was too feart tae go in. So I went up and sorted her oot something, then got her uncle’s number and phoned him. I took her hame wi me — I was shitein it that she’d rob us in the night when I left her on that couch — and the next day we went up tae St Andrew’s Square bus station. I bought her a Nottingham ticket and stuck her on that National Express coach n didnae leave until it pulled away. I called her Uncle Murray the next day, tae make sure she got there, and he telt me he was looking tae line up treatment for her. Murray was really tearing intae Simon, blaming him for Maria being on junk, but I didnae want tae get intae that with him. Sometimes families jist project their shit onto other people. Fair play tae her Uncle Murray but, he sent me up a cheque for the ticket.