Blood Relatives. Stevan Alcock

gulls fighting over a morsel. Someone wor asking me loads of questions, someone else plied me wi’ drink, someone squeezed my arse. I knew I wor getting khalied, cos I wor drinking too fast and my teeth wor becoming numb. I fell against a table.

      ‘I should be off,’ I slurred, unable to will mesen to move. Then, somehow, I wor pushing through t’ pub doors and stumbling into a street bin. I heard a voice calling out after me, calling out my name.

Irene Richardson

      05/02/1977

      The Saturday after Irene Richardson wor done over, we called in on Vanessa as usual. We found her in a bit of a state. The police had been doing door to door. She had hid hersen in t’ kids’ room, wi’ t’ kids, waiting for ’em to leave. Then a reporter came nosing, doing t’ same.

      ‘She wor here,’ Vanessa said, rocking little Jase on her knee and chain smoking.

      ‘Who wor?’

      ‘Irene. Not long before she wor done over, Irene turned up here.’

      ‘Jeez, Vanessa, you haven’t told the cops?’

      ‘Tell them owt and they’ll never be off yer doorstep. So don’t you go saying nowt neither, hear me?’

      Eric nodded. Vanessa eyeballed me and I nodded also. She stroked Jase’s hair.

      ‘When I heard a banging at t’ door I knew summat wor up. I rolled over in bed, hoping that whoever it wor would go away. But it wor t’ kind of knocking that has the devil right behind it, if yer know what I mean. Then I heard my name called – or at least the name I use on t’ street – and I wor surprised, cos it wor a woman’s voice. I remember what time it wor cos the alarm clock said it wor after 3 a.m.’

      I could picture the alarm clock. I’d spotted it one time through t’ open bedroom door: a kiddies’ clock wi’ Mickey and Minnie Mouse seesawing through time. Vanessa took a long drag on her ciggie.

      ‘I got up, wrapped mesen in my bathrobe’ (the pink one she often wore) ‘and shouted, “All right, all right, I’m effin’ coming – Jesus bloody Christ!”’

      I pictured Vanessa pulling her fingers through her tangled hair as she padded barefoot down t’ corridor lino and unslotted the safety chain to find hersen peering through t’ door crack at a small, dishevelled woman. ‘Only I couldn’t see her proper,’ Vanessa said. ‘Not in that light. But she wor somehow familiar.’

      Before she’d been able to say owt Vanessa had been hit by Irene pleading in her Glaswegian accent. ‘Cannae stay … I’m sorry, please … I need somewhere to stay … just a wee while, just for tonight, just one night, it’s so cold, and I won’ be no trouble …’ on and on she’d gabbled, plainly fearing that if she stopped for a moment the door would be closed on her.

      ‘What could I do?’ Vanessa said, looking at us both. ‘I unhitched the chain and told her she could have t’ sofa. She stood in t’ middle of t’ room in her fake suede coat, this wild look in her eye. I know that look, when someone’s hanging on by their last fingertips. Scared me shitless, I can tell you. Maybe, not far behind, there wor some very angry bloke, a pimp, a punter. I said to her, “Do I know you?” And that’s when she told me her name. Said she’d seen me out working once or twice, and knew where I lived.’

      After that Irene had fallen silent, as if suddenly struck dumb by some affliction. She’d stood there, shivering, clutching her bag to her chest. Vanessa offered her a ciggie and she took it, then Vanessa lit one for hersen. Irene’s fingers wor dark and unsteady.

      ‘I fetched her a blanket, and told her where to find a towel in t’ bathroom, but she said she wor fine. Said she’d been roughing it and tidying hersen up at a public lav. Then she asked me if I’d got kids. Turns out she’d got two an’ all, only hers were in care. She said it wor just for a while, ’til she got back on her feet.’

      Vanessa pulled her robe tighter about her. ‘Then she asked if she could see my kids. I held the door open just a little, cos I didn’t want her going in there, but then she wanted to stroke their hair. So I told her I didn’t want ’em woken up.’

      For most of t’ night Vanessa had lain awake, anxiously listening through t’ bedroom wall to Irene crashing about like a restless horse in a stall. Across from Vanessa, Barry and Jase slept on, top and tailed on t’ single mattress.

      Gradually the noises grew less frequent, then ceased altogether.

      The next morning Irene had tried to negotiate another night, but Vanessa had told her bluntly that she couldn’t stay. Irene’s chillingly blank stares and constantly furrowed brow sapped Vanessa’s strength, and she wanted to be shot of her. Vanessa pulled a fiver from her purse – her only punter the previous afternoon.

      ‘Here,’ she said, holding it out. Irene didn’t hesitate.

      ‘Vanessa, I swear …’

      ‘Forget it, luv.’

      Irene quickly combed her tangles of thick hair wi’ a hairbrush she’d found lying under a chair, then left without another word.

      The next night she booked hersen into a grotty rooming house in Cowper Street. The papers said so. She dumped her bag of meagre belongings on t’ bed, spruced hersen up hurriedly and left, telling someone that she wor headed for Tiffany’s disco in t’ city centre.

      A jogger found Irene Richardson’s body on nearby Soldiers Field, not a hammer’s throw from where Wilma McCann wor topped.

      When we called on Vanessa the next week she’d gone. Eric pressed his nose up against her window and peered in. I put my hands to t’ sides of my face like a horse’s blinkers and peered in also.

      There wor nowt but a mucky sock on t’ bare floor, a sun-faded print of a kitten in a basket of flowers on t’ wall, and a wooden chair wi’ t’ seat missing.

      ‘She’s scarpered,’ Eric said.

      ‘Looks like it.’

      ‘Moved on, like they all do. Best strike her from t’ round-book.’

      All in all, I wor relieved that we worn’t having cuppas at Vanessa’s no more. Her teasing and questioning had always made me squirm inside. Like she knew really.

      Mid-morning tea break now wor wi’ Lourdes, a big West Indian woman, big, springy hair, big hips, big, unruly breasts. Lourdes wore knee-length striped stockings and played scratchy ska records. I asked Eric why all our breaks were wi’ prozzies. He said prozzies make better tea.

      Lourdes flashed her teeth a lot while she blathered, and her tea tasted like wrung-out dishcloth. She danced around t’ room to her ska music, her buttocks shimmying like maggot-filled medicine balls.

      ‘You dancin’, bwoy?’ She meant me.

      ‘I can’t dance.’

      Lourdes yanked me out of my seat. ‘Mi teaches yuh!’ She took hold of me wi’ both hands. I tried a few unwilling plods on t’ spot and kicked out a leg.

      ‘Bwoy, you ain’t trying to shift a fridge! Use dem hips!’ She slapped her own buttock.

      I shuffled like someone wriggling out of wet jeans. She tossed her head back and laughed.

      ‘Dat is duh ting!’

      Eric wor grinning at me like he wor seeing another story for t’ lads back at the depot.

      Lourdes said, ‘You’s like ska and reggae, bwoy?’

      ‘Punk!’ Eric shouted over t’ pulsating lilt blooping out of Lourdes’ stereo speakers. ‘He’s into all that punk stuff!’

      Lourdes’ face crumpled. ‘Punk? Wat dat? Mi nah nuttin’ about punk. How’s I dance dat punk?’

      ‘You