Blood Relatives

Chester wagged his finger at me. ‘You’s saying that now! You’s be saying that now!’

If it wor too hot for cricket, it wor surely too hot for murder. That summer, nowt happened.

For t’ next few weeks I wor riled to find Jim’s good-for-nowt brother answering the door to Blandford Gardens. I longed for him to skedaddle back to where he came from. But three week became a month, and a month became three. He wor a friggin’ scrounger and a layabout if ever I saw one. He’d taken to ordering an extra couple of bottles of Coke for himsen on Jim’s money. Spent his Saturday afternoons watching Grandstand, and most likely spent his evenings in t’ pub.

I asked after Jim, keeping it casual, but Steve always said he wor either out or kipping. Besides, what wi’ t’ hot weather an’ all, sometimes we only finished the round after Jim wor on his way to t’ bikkie factory. To put the hearts in Jammie Dodgers.

Then one afternoon I found a note in an envelope under t’ empties. I tore it open.

Just one bottle of tonic water and one Coke. Jim. x

He’d left the exact change. I folded and pocketed the envelope and swapped over t’ bottles. Steve had finally pissed off back to Glasgow or wherever. I spent the rest of t’ round singing and whistling and joking wi’ Eric, and at the end of t’ day I told him to drop me in town. I ran full pelt the quarter mile to Blandford Gardens rather than wait for t’ bus.

Again, there wor no one home. It wor that dead hour of t’ day – too early for t’ pubs, but t’ shops wor already shut. I hung about for a while, my mood sinking wi’ t’ lowering early-autumn sun. I mooched off about t’ neighbouring streets and then up past Leeds Uni. I found mesen idling before t’ window of some feminist bookshop, fumed up about Jim being out even though Steve had gone, not wanting to go home and undecided about what to do wi’ mesen.

The bookshop wor closed. The plate window wor a proper jamboree of notice cards, adverts and magazine covers wi’ names like Spare Rib, Marxism Today and Leeds Other Paper. On t’ far wall above a tatty sofa wor a pro-abortion poster and a Che Guevara poster. Studenty-politico-women’s-commie-lesbo stuff. I wor thinking about breaking in, or at least bricking the window, cos smashing summat up might make me feel better about t’ world, when my eye wor drawn to a word on a lavender-coloured card that wor taped to t’ side window. I took a furtive gander. The card read:

No mention of t’ friggin’ time.

As soon as I pushed through t’ pub saloon doors I knew I wor way too early. Apart from a few gruff old men strung along t’ bar and a teenage couple snogging in a corner, the Empress wor deserted.

I ordered a lager and lime and pitched up at a low corner table. I sat there a friggin’ age, shredding beer mats. Eventually two women entered, one of them portering a cardboard box.

At once I wor as alert as a fox. I watched ’em blathering on to t’ barmaid, who wor pulling two pints of bitter. Maybe, I thought, I should introduce mesen. Hello, I’m Rick. Is this the Gay Lib meeting? Like the friggin’ AA. What if they worn’t lesbos at all? What if tonight wor quiz night? One of ’em even had long blonde hair. What if, being lesbos, they didn’t speak to men? ‘Some lesbos are separatists,’ Jim had said, ‘who think all men should be castrated.’ I crossed my legs. ‘Some of them,’ Jim had said, ‘tried to buy an island off the coast of Scotland,’ either to put all t’ men on or for themsens, he couldn’t quite recall. They wanted to de-sex the Isle of Man, and Manchester and manhole cover, and chimneybreast wor to become chimney-chest. And ‘women’ wor now spelt ‘wimmin’. What’s more, Jim had said, all lesbos wor trouble, always getting into fights and being aggressive. Once, he said, a lesbo had threatened him wi’ a snooker cue, though he didn’t say why, leaving me to think that all lesbos threaten men wi’ snooker cues.

The women made for t’ stairs, one slopping the drinks, t’ other portering the box. The box, I noticed, had once held Fairy Liquid bottles. I got up from my seat and crossed to t’ bar. I coughed at the barmaid who wor vigorously twirling glasses on a plastic brush head. She jutted her chin in my direction.

‘Do you have a snooker table upstairs?’

‘We do, luv, but there’s a meeting on up there tonight.’

‘So, erm … what meeting’s that, then?’

She set two upturned glasses on a red slop cloth.

‘Gay Lib meeting. Sue and Lorna are setting up.’

She spoke brusquely, as if it wor owt o’ nowt and time wor pressing. Her hands ceased their busying about t’ bar, her chin jutted out again, only over my shoulder toward someone else. Behind me I heard a voice saying, ‘Hey, Rick? Rick?’

I turned, feeling the colour flooding from my face as I found mesen eyeball-to-eyeball wi’ an ex-school mate.

‘Warren?’

‘Rick?’

My skin wor poppin’ and burstin’ like popcorn on t’ hob. Warren had sat next to me for t’ first three year of high school. I hated him, cos he wor good at maths and I worn’t. He’d shot up an inch or two since I’d seen him last, and had the wispy makings of a moustache on his upper lip. I closed my eyes, willing Warren away, but when I opened ’em he wor still there, grinning like a gargoyle.

‘Rick Thorpe. Where have you been hiding?’

I grabbed an ice cube from t’ bucket on t’ bar, crushed it in my fist, letting the water trickle between my fingers.

‘I … I … might ask yersen t’ same question.’

‘Me? I wor just passing by when I spotted you through the window. So this is where you lurk, is it? No one sees you any more.’

‘Here … and other places.’

I smiled inanely at him. I had to escape, to reach cool water, cold air, but I wor trapped. I would have to … have to … Out of t’ corner of my eye I clocked two men arriving. A young’un wi’ a haystack of hair and decked out in Northern Soul gear – the platform shoes, the highwaister keks and a tank top wi’ a star motif on it – and an older bloke, thinning on top, wearing purple crushed velvet loons and a green denim jacket spewed over wi’ badges and buttons. He had the friggin’ set: Anti-Nazi League, pink triangles, pro-abortion, trade unions, Chairman Mao and Che Guevara, Keep Music Live, Rock Against Racism, and down both lapels, lines of friggin’ miniature railway pins. ‘YES, I’M HOMOSEXUAL TOO’ screamed the first badge in my sightline.

‘Oh, fuck!’ I murmured. Please, Warren, please – I wor thinking so loudly it felt that I wor shouting at him – please don’t turn round, don’t look at those men. I put a hand on Warren’s shoulder so he wor jammed between me and the bar stool.

Warren looked petrified, though fuck knows why – I wor t’ one in t’ pig pen.

‘So,’ he wor saying, ‘what brings you in here, then?’

‘Me? I’m … meeting … someone.’

‘Bird, is it?’

From t’ edge of my eye I saw t’ two men move to t’ end of t’ bar, where they wor served by t’ barmaid. Then, drinks in hand, they headed toward t’ stairs.

‘No, no, truth be known … Well, yeah, you’ve got me, yeah, I am. I’m meeting this bird and she’ll be here any mo’, so it might be a good idea if … Warren, I’ll be back in a jiffy, I’m bustin’ for a leak.’

I pelted for t’ gents. Fortunately, it wor empty. No friggin’ mirror. Never a mirror in t’ gents. Mirrors are poncy. I rammed on t’ cold tap and threw water onto my neck, arms, face. I gripped t’ cool porcelain sink, inhaling and exhaling, my face tight wi’ agony, wi’ relief.

I could scarper. Or I could slip up them stairs. I dried my face and hands on t’ dirty roller towel. What did it matter if Warren knew? Let him blab, let him tell every so-called friggin’ school mate who never wor my mate, let him tell t’ headmaster, all t’ teachers, every last one of those friggin’ tossers who said I wor a useless good-for-nowt and that I wor wasting my life. I wor out of their grasp now. No more hiding in t’ science-block toilets in a blind panic or bunking off school cos I wor terrified. A strange, floating calmness coated me. I stood tall, patted my hair. I strode back into t’ bar. Warren had skedaddled.

I wor miffed to find my drink had been whisked away, so I ordered another one.

Folk started arriving in greater numbers now, singly and in pairs. My finger ends wor tingling. I bided my time, watching. It wor as if I’d stumbled on some secret society, and I wor about to be initiated, stretched out naked before ’em while all manner of acts wor performed on me. It occurred to me that maybe Warren hadn’t left at all. Maybe he wor upstairs wi’ t’ rest of ’em. That would take the biscuit. I stood there, undecided what to do. Then I took a long sup from my lager and lime and headed up the stairs into t’ growing hubbub.

There wor a good thirty people there. Thankfully, most of them wor men. The meeting passed in a daze. I wor crushed by t’ stomach-aching ordinariness of it all. I found it hard to fathom what it wor all about, and my attention drifted off into musings on some of t’others about me. Such as the man in t’ Michael Caine glasses and mustard poloneck sweater. Or t’ long-haired man in black velvet loons who perched cross-legged on his chair all evening. The woman in t’ white denim all-in-one, the bib decorated wi’ flower patches. The thin-faced Asian bloke who listened wi’ his chin tilted toward t’ cornice.

My stomach wor growling so loudly I wor sure everyone could hear it. The weasly, freckle-headed man sitting next to me must have heard. And yet, somehow the demons beneath t’ skin stayed quiet.

Mustard-poloneck man stood up, took off his specs and wiped them, then welcomed everyone, ‘especially the new faces’. A few heads swivelled my way, so I looked down at my boots.

There wor an agenda. And friggin’ points.

Point one: Should the women have separate meetings? This wor held over, cos there wor so few women present. Maybe they wor stuck on t’ island Jim said they’d bought.

Point two: Back copies of Gay News should be collected and donated to fish-and-chip shops as politicised wrapping. This wor passed, and two people said they’d take care of it.

Point twelve: Should PIE be part of t’ meetings?

I turned to t’ weasly man next to me. ‘Pie?’ I whispered hopefully. I wor friggin’ famished.

‘Paedophile Information Exchange,’ he replied.