With Love and Squalor Read online

  Mo gets in her face.

  Other than big, she’s everything Rose is not. She works out, does her nails, moisturises, conditions her pit-black hair and holds it in place with sprays.

  Her dark eyes stare at Rose like she can see inside her skull.

  It’s nothing Rose hasn’t seen before, but it’s better than most. Like she really believes she can win.

  Rose knows better than to stare back. Instead she admires the tattoos that cover her arms. She’s seen their likes before on her travels. Thought about getting her own done till the artist pointed out it would just make her skin look older.

  Kisses her ring for luck. Won it on a coconut-shy when she was still a virgin. The fake emerald leaves the taste of polish on her lips.

  She tightens up her lifter’s belt and sits down at the table. Spreads her legs and takes hold of the post with her left hand. Flexes her fingers around it till the grip feels right, then sticks.

  Mo does the same at the other side of the table.

  George starts talking then brings the hands together.

  Mo grips like enormous pliers, the vein on her arm pulsing like a snake.

  First round it’s easy for Rose. She moves through the gears so fast that Mo hasn’t time to react. She’ll learn, one day, that strength without technique is like water without a bottle.

  Second round, though, it’s all attrition. Stuck in the middle for a while, then inching one way then the other until a shooting pain works it’s way from Rose’s elbow to her shoulder. For a moment she loses focus. Thinks her heart’s giving up on her. Wishes she’d given up the smokes. Feels the back of her hand on the table and realises she’s not dying. Not tonight.

  Round three’s the decider.

  The pain has faded. A quick rub like it’s no big deal and they’re back at it.

  Things aren’t the way they usually are. All Rose can do is defend, her wrist an inch from table’s top.

  Only her hand-strength keeps the bout alive, her reputation solid. The rest of her body trembles with the tension and is crying out to submit.

  Mo tries again to shift the lock. Digs her nails in to gain an edge.

  Rose bites her lip to find a different kind of pain.

  She knows she’s beat. There’s no way back. Just a case of going out with pride.

  A stream of sweat peels off her nose to meet her eyes, stinging like pokes from a pair of chilli fingers.

  Her left hand wipes them clear and snags her wig on return, only she’s too focussed to notice.

  As if the Lord descends, she feels Mo’s pressure slacken and knows it’s time to act. Throws every ounce at one last stand.

  Feels Mo’s arm push back and give. Hits the back of her hand to the table like she’s in a game of snap.

  It’s all over.

  Rose stands up and punches air.

  Looks out to gather adulation.

  Can’t believe there’s none of it around.

  Instead it’s the hysterical laughter of playground shame.

  Mo’s the same. Pissing her sides and pointing.

  The only straight face she sees is George, his mouth down-turned like a falling, crescent moon. He puts the microphone to his face. Rose doesn’t hear it all, like her brain clicks on and off like alternating current. “…disqualified for taking her hand from the table…new heavyweight champion...the Maori Mountain.”

  It’s all a blur, like a night out with the boys.

  “Come on, Rose,” George says and puts an arm around her neck. “Let’s get you out of here.” He waves to the DJ who cues her up.

  Ba da ba da ba da ba.

  And even the guitar sounds like it’s laughing.

  It’s only when she gets to the dressing room that she sees it, the bob of pink snagged onto her ring and hanging in the air like a distress signal.

  Seated in her van, she looks in the rear-view mirror and gazes at her scalp.

  Atop her sun-blasted, outback skin the cone of her scalp shines like an egg. All she needs is a tea-spoon and toast soldiers to complete the picture.

  Feels another tear roll down.

  Lets her fingers play along the hand-held shears she uses for the exhibitions. Waits to take the Maori Mountain’s crown.

  Reaching the Summit

  I don’t know how they came to pick me and I don’t know if I was the only one, but I do know that £50,000 was too much for a girl like me to turn down and that there was no harm in what they wanted me to do, not really.

  At first I had one condition, that I would be the one to carry the child. Turned out they already had someone lined up, thirty years old, trained athlete, no history of miscarriage or illness. They compromised, said I could be at the birth, and that was good enough for me.

  It took three hours to get into the G20 summit, which was funny given that my hotel was only five minutes away on foot.

  First of all, I had to get on the bus. Half an hour they had us there while they checked us out.

  Judging by the smell of gels, deodorants and aftershaves each and every journalist had been up early getting ready for the big day. I recognised some of them from my travels. We’d all been on tougher assignments as we rose high enough up the ladder to be picked for a peach of a job like that.

  The bus was just the start. There were manual searches, metal detectors, sniffer-dogs and bureaucrats to overcome, but people like me, we live for days such as those.

  Once we finally passed through the eye of their needle, we were treated like royalty. The refreshments were to die for and the platters were carried around as deftly as if they were explosive devices.

  The press conference was something else. Each speaker had enough charisma to carry a reality TV-show single-handedly, but when it was his turn the rest quickly faded into memory.

  Barack Obama. I could see why they’d picked him. Tall and handsome, he stood there melting hearts and inspiring minds. How well he talks, how quickly he thinks, how much he knows. It makes sense that you’d go for one of those. His smiles are broad enough to mend rifts between continents and there’s more power in his hands than in the whole of Samson.

  I think I fell a little in love with him.

  When my turn came I fumbled the question, but he treated it with respect and made a little joke to make me feel better.

  At close of play, the buzz from the journalists filled the room like electricity.That’s when I took my chance.

  Get anything, they’d told me. Anything he touched, take it and the money was mine.

  It was my lucky day. When I got to the stand there were three items waiting: a glass, a serviette and a hand-written list of prompts. I dropped them into my handbag without anyone noticing and left the building without so much as a wave from security.

  That was nine months ago. True to their word, they invited me to witness the birth. They filled me in on the regime the host had been on and, I must say, I was impressed by their attention to detail.

  Mum and Dad were there, too. They must be billionaires if they can afford to clone the most powerful man on Earth.

  Thing I don’t understand is this. I thought clones were supposed to be dead-ringers of the parent and I can’t for the life of me recall anything about Obama being born with ginger hair. Not that I was about to hang around for a science lesson. There are some things a girl just doesn’t need to know.

  No Pain, No Gain

  After all he’d dished out he must surely have got the message. I wasn’t about to tell them shit.

  Smashed my nose, pulled teeth, took nails and sent shocks through my private parts and I still hadn’t spilled a bean.

  Even broke my fingers.

  Hell, I used to do that on purpose when I was a kid when I didn’t want to eat my greens. Freaked my parents out watching me bend the fuckers till they cracked. Surest way I knew of getting out of stuff.

  “Where’s Jamie-Ray?” The old bastard was getting tired and sweating all over the place. The man needs to go out there and join a gym you
ask me.

  Did my best to shrug my shoulders. Wasn’t easy with my hands tied to the chair. Scumbag hadn’t even given me a cushion.

  Wilson raised the wrench over his head like he was about to use it.

  I smiled.

  He used it.

  When I came round I was still trussed up, only I was lying on my side in a sticky red pool.

  At least there wasn’t no Bart Wilson there. All I had to do was get myself to a hospital and explain.

  Took me a couple a hours to get my hands free. After that it was plain sailing.

  Headed down to Accident and Emergency.

  Had to go through the same old crap.

  “Have you been taking drugs, sir?” They usually ask that. Sometimes it’s about drinking and others it’s about mental health, but mostly it’s the drugs.

  I wasn’t in fit shape to answer. Tried, but something wasn’t working in the mouth department.

  “You think there’s something wrong? Would you open wide?”

  She was just playing me along, I could tell. Waiting to send me up to see a shrink or something.

  A couple of other nurses came over. Hovered over the desk trying to look busy. Like they’d be any good at security if the lady needed help.

  I opened my mouth like she asked.

  “Oh my word,” she said. “Sit yourself over there and I’ll get a doctor over as soon as one’s available.”

  She started being nice. Came round and put her arms round my shoulders. Guided me to the waiting area.

  “Can I get you something for the pain?”

  They never get it. Not even when I can tell them.

  I took off my hat.

  She inhaled and made a noise like she was breathing through a bicycle pump.

  First things first, I had to go and find my sister, Pinky, and her boyfriend. Tell them things weren’t looking so good.

  I’d dropped them off at Bart’s place, just like we’d arranged. Watched them go in through the front calm as the Mediterranean. Bouncers looked them up and down, gave them a token frisk and let them by. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  Just my luck to get moved on by the police. That wasn’t in the plan. Guess they had to take the train or a taxi. Fuck knows how they were supposed to move the stuff without the car.

  I didn’t get to find out what happened till I heard it from Bart Wilson back in his torture chamber.

  Pinky and Jamie-Ray had interrupted the game. Pulled out guns and aimed them right at the croupier. Course they knew Jamie-Ray right off. He’d been dealing the cards and spinning wheels alongside me for six months. Smiling and taking their money.

  Unfortunately Bart was there with his cousins watching the way the cards were falling.

  On any one day, there might be one security guy up there. With Bart and his cousins, that made six.

  Jamie-Ray must’ve panicked. Started shooting up the place.

  Pinky had to so the same.

  So now Bart doesn’t have any cousins.

  Bad news for us is he’s the youngest of seven brothers. Worse, he’s the runt of the litter.

  Me and Pinky have always been close. We share things. A football team, friends and our mum and dad. Things she used to do to get out of shit, she was worse than me.

  Been called Pinky ever since her conjunctivitis.

  Our parents are just regular folk. They could never have expected us to come out the way we did.

  When they mixed their genes together, threw in their X’s and Y’s we’re what came out of the mix.

  There were three of us to begin with. Me and Pinky and Josh. We all had it. Congenital Pain Insensitivity. Can’t never get hurt. Feel sensations but nothing else. None of us cried when they cut our feet for the Guthrie test Guess they must have suspected we were different soon as we were born.

  Sounds like a blessing, right? Never getting sore.

  Wasn’t so good for Josh. He fell asleep by the fire one night. Was only five. Somehow he caught light. By the time my parents got to him all they could do was save the house. If he could’ve felt the pain he’d a woken himself up. Put himself out.

  Only consolation, he never felt a thing.

  Guess that just made Pinks and me closer. Did as many things as a girl and a boy can do together, apart from the sex stuff of course. She’s had Jamie-Ray for that this past year. I tried to warn her off, but she wasn’t having it.

  Must’ve fallen for all that muscle and the Aussie twang.

  Asked him once what he did over there.

  “This and that,” he told me.

  And why he’d come over in such a hurry.

  “Pissed my bosses off by taking a lot of their money.” He didn’t look to sorry about what he’d done. “They weren’t going to give up till I was floating upside down under the Harbour Bridge.”

  “So where’s the money?” I asked him. If he was so rich, how come he was living with Pinky in a ex-council flat in need of more repairs than a stock car?

  “When I get word things are cool, we’ll go and pick it up.” I didn’t like the way he said we. “Show Pinky the cities and the outback then we’ll settle somewhere fine. You’ll come and visit.”

  Halle-bloody-lulia.

  Eventually word came from Oz that things were calm.

  Jamie-Ray and Pinky, they were all set for leaving as soon as they could. Only problem was they’d spent all they had on a camper van that broke down on them on the Edgeware Road. A mechanic friend of Pinky’s said there was nothing to be done.

  They were stony-broke.

  And that’s when Jamie-Ray came up with his plan.

  Soon as I opened the door I knew something was up. For a start, something was blocking way in. For another there was no stink of Brylcream.

  My mouth still wasn’t fit for talking. As it turned out, that was the first lucky break I’d had in a while.

  The shots came from the bedroom.

  My instinct was to run like hell, but I managed to get over that pretty quick.

  Instead I sprinted to the kitchen, picked out a couple of the biggest knives and ran through.

  The balcony door was open, so I thought I’d go and take a look. Problem was I tripped over someone on the way.

  I could only see the legs when I looked back.

  The trousers had turn-ups, but the shoes were regular black leather affairs. That’s how come I knew it wasn’t Jamie-Ray. He never wears anything but winkle-pickers. Reckon he still thinks it’s 1959, with his leather jackets and his fancy shirts and all.

  I gave the legs a pull to see who came out.

  It wasn’t easy to tell with half his face missing and the other half covered in blood. Only real clue I had was the ginger hair. Wilson was a carrot top. Wasn’t Wilson though, at least not Bart. Bart never went out without a flower pinned to his lapel. Best guess was that it was one of his brothers.

  Can’t say I gave a shit about the guy I’d found. He probably had it coming to him.

  It was the blood on the bed that had me worried. It was already dry.

  And then there were the red circles leading to the door.

  I followed them out on to the balcony. By the time I got there, all I could see was nothing.

  London’s a big city. Aren’t they all?

  You’d think it would be easy enough to lie low for a while. Jump on a tube and stay on it till the end of the line. That’s what I’d have done.

  Jamie-Ray doesn’t think that way, though. Nor does Pinky any more.

  They sent me a text checking in. I’d have called back, only I still couldn’t talk. Texted instead. I’d meet him at the usual place at midnight.

  I went home to bed to catch a couple of hour’s nap. Had to lie with my head propped up to keep the taste of metal out of my throat. Didn’t sleep a wink. Came up with a new plan. Don’t reckon I’ll ever do my thinking when I’m half asleep ever again.

  Kite Hill’s just about my favourite place when it’s dark. There’s hardly anyone around if you
don’t count the men-folk cruising the bushes looking for their own kind.

  All you have for company is the hum of traffic and all you’ve got to do is think your thoughts.