Blood Relatives. Stevan Alcock

as I get my own place. What about yersen?’

      She cackled. ‘I don’t live with my mother, if that’s what you mean. God, no.’ She shook her head, laughing. ‘God, no,’ she repeated. Her laughter raged about and then fled.

      ‘Are you working then, Richard?’ She spoke rapidly and quietly, as if she wor afraid someone might overhear.

      ‘Nothing great. What about you?’

      ‘Signing on. I was training to be a nurse but I got fired. Buy me a drink?’

      I bought us both cider. She drank hers down in rapid gulps. We had a couple more. Being wi’ her wor like trespassing. She had this way of nibbling her bottom lip and staring into you as if you’d been caught out. She said it wor only her third time at the FK Club, and she didn’t think much of it. Her offhandedness deflated me like a knife in a tyre. So I faked being world-weary and unimpressed. Suddenly she grabbed me by t’ arm. ‘Stay here, don’t move, only I’ve just seen someone I have to talk to.’

      She darted off. The DJ played ‘Gloria’ by Patti Smith, then some Burning Spear, then ‘White Riot’ by The Clash. I bought mesen another pint of cider. And another. It wor all finishing up, an t’ place wor emptying rapidly. A long-haired roadie in an Allman Brothers T-shirt wor carting out band equipment. An old woman wor pushing a wide broom across t’ floor, the bristles skidmarking through t’ beer slops.

      Then I saw her lolling by a radiator. I wondered if she’d been watching me on t’ sly. I strolled over, all loose-limbed and more than a little khalied.

      ‘I didn’t think you’d wait,’ she said.

      I fired off a so-what smile. ‘I wor just about to head off. Did you find that girl?’

      ‘Sort of.’

      ‘That one you arrived wi’?’

      ‘Her? No, God, no. That was just fat Judy.’

      ‘She ain’t that fat.’

      ‘The girl I was looking for was the one I was snogging in the toilets last week.’

      ‘Uh-huh.’

      ‘Only tonight she pissed off without saying a word.’

      ‘Right.’

      ‘Are you shocked?’

      ‘Do you want me to be?’

      She shrugged.

      Outside, a few folk wor still hanging about. Someone wor touting tickets for a Banshees gig in Doncaster. We pushed through, heading on up the dully lit street ’til we came to a junction. I stopped, one hand on my belly.

      ‘I think I’m gonna spew up.’

      I bent double, and a volley of vomit splattered the pavement.

      ‘Oh, bloody Nora! Hey, wait!’

      I staggered after her, spitting out vomit bits, ’til I caught up. She wor singing some rubbish song in a high-pitched, baby-doll voice, only she couldn’t remember the verses, so she just kept repeating the chorus, emphasising a different word each time. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. When we reached the traffic island she said, ‘This is where we part.’

      ‘You off then?’

      ‘I have to get home,’ she said, implying some urgent reason. ‘Lift up your shirt.’

      She fumbled about in her pockets for a biro. ‘Lift up your shirt,’ she repeated, poking me in t’ chest. I rolled up my T-shirt. It wor damp. She wrote her number across my chest. It tickled and I tried not to squirm.

      ‘Don’t rub it off before you can remember it.’

      Then, before I could say owt more, she wor gone, darting off in t’ direction of t’ town centre.

      The next week I tried phoning her. The line wor out of order. She didn’t show at the FK Club neither. So I asked Judy about her.

      ‘Gina? You a friend of hers?’

      ‘Sort of.’

      ‘All her friends are sort of.’

      She finally pitched up at the FK Club weeks later. Her hair wor now dyed platinum blonde, she wore a black string vest under a biker’s jacket (no bra), DMs and torn black leggings. I ignored her ’til she placed hersen in front of me, fixing me wi’ a triumphant stare.

      ‘Didn’t you recognise me, then?’

      ‘Course I friggin’ did.’

      ‘Oooooh, Mister Coool!’ She chuckled and turned on her heeled boots.

      For t’ rest of t’ night she wor firing off dark glances at me. Downstairs, a small crowd wor watching Patrick Fitzgerald’s acoustic friggin’ punk. Songs about safety pins stuck in hearts. Upstairs, a few stony-faced rastas slunk around t’ pool table and a line of stockingless white girls in tight, spangly dresses perched on bar stools, dragging on their ciggies.

      It wor then I clapped eyes on him. The lad from t’ Merrion Centre multi-storey. Jim’s boy.

      I sidled closer ’til I wor only a few feet from him. He wor facing slightly away, making out that he hadn’t clocked me, but I knew he had. He wor waiting like a gazelle: nervous, alert, almost quivering.

      All of a sudden he slunk away, then glanced back at me. I knew I wor meant to follow.

      He led me through t’ fire doors and down t’ rear steps that led to t’ boiler room. In t’ pitch-black hollow of t’ doorway we fell greedily on each other, pulling at each other’s clothes. Behind t’ steel door the boiler hissed like some locked-up beast. I grazed my knuckles against t’ wall. I yanked down his drainpipe keks and dropped to my knees and took his hard-on in my mouth. Moments later he spunked off wi’ a solitary exhalation, rucked up his keks, palmed his hair, mumbled summat and left. I kicked t’ boiler door. ‘Fuck!’ I hadn’t even unzipped, barely got started.

      ‘Fuck!’

      I headed back up the steps. The bugger had shut the fire doors after him. I clambered over a wall and dropped into t’ road. The doorman wouldn’t let me back in unless I paid again cos I didn’t have a pass-out stamp.

      I headed home, toward t’ city centre. It wor raining sideways. The road gleamed in t’ wet and the city neon lights blurred at the edges.

      Taxi! I saw a taxi beetling along. I stepped out into t’ road, waving at it as its headlights bore down on me. The taxi slowed, then picked up speed again.

      ‘Fucker!’

      The taxi stopped abruptly, slammed into reverse. Oh, fuck, I wor thinking, oh friggin’ hell. The driver wound down t’ window.

      ‘I ain’t supposed to stop here. Get in, then, before t’ boys in blue clap eyes on us.’

      I slumped into a corner of t’ cab, my mouth still tasting salty-sweet from t’ lad’s load.

      ‘Bin another one,’ the driver wor saying as he swung sharp right down a pitch-black side street. ‘How many’s that now? Of course, it could all be a nasty coincidence, but I’d say it worn’t, I’d say there’s a maniac on t’ loose, wouldn’t you? Want to know what the wife thinks about it all? She thinks it’s someone wi’ t’ clap who’s out for revenge. But then, t’ wife’s full of ideas like that about t’ world. Me, I don’t know what to think. You go up the Carlisle Hotel and you’ll find ’em, strung along t’ bar stools wi’ price tags on t’ backs of their stilettos. Some of ’em you wouldn’t let a dog lift its leg on, know what I mean? Still, no one deserves to get sliced up, right? Picked up a few of their punters in my time. Well, you would, wouldn’t you, in this job? As long as they pay the fare I don’t look none too close. Young’un like you don’t go wi’ slappers like that, do you?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘No.