Blood Relatives

Mrs Husk looked down at her leg.

‘I think that’s enough. I’ll bandage it later – let the air at it a while. I’d better not keep yer dallying, now that he’s finished wi’ her over yonder.’

I peered through t’ nets. Must have been a real quickie, cos Eric wor already on t’ back of t’ van, restacking crates. Mrs Husk sluiced her tea through her dentures and peered into t’ bottom of t’ cup.

‘Oh it’s a rum world, all right,’ she muttered to Lord Snooty, who looked up at her and mewed, then drummed his claws furiously against a chair leg.

After t’ round I got Eric to drop me in town.

‘Give her one from me!’ he shouted.

I legged it to Blandford Gardens, then stopped at the end of t’ road, doubled up wi’ a stitch. I knew at once that the Matterhorn Man worn’t home. The house wor in darkness. The street wor eerily empty, wi’ all t’ cars parked where they wor last week, like they’d never been driven. The sun wor slowly sinking behind t’ buildings opposite. I rapped on t’ door. The knocker had a dead knell. I waited, then rapped again. Standing in t’ gutter, I scoured up at the bedroom window. Where it happened. Where it should be happening now.

Before Jim, I’d never slept under a duvet before. Before Jim, I’d never even shared a bed wi’ a man, a proper grown-up man, wi’ a grown-up man’s stubble, and dark breath, hands wi’ hairs sprouting from t’ backs of t’ fingers, muscular calves and the amazing, perfect, slightly kinked cock.

At first it hurt a bit, like he wor trying to jab it in me, but that wor only cos I wor all tensed up. Jim said I had to learn to relax and imagine I wor drawing him in, and that it wor like learning to swim or riding a bicycle, wi’ practice and persuasion I’d soon be flying. Jim wor patient and gently insistent, and then suddenly I wor up in t’ clouds and there wor no bringing me down again ’til t’ inevitable happened.

And afterward I lay on t’ purple nylon sheets wi’ my head on Jim’s chest, listening to t’ squelches and gurgles in Jim’s stomach mingling wi’ Pink Floyd’s Meddle LP on t’ stereo, feeling warm and safe and sated ’til Jim said it wor time for him to go put the hearts in Jammie Dodgers and for me to go home.

I peered through t’ letterbox into t’ hallway. All wor dull and silent.

Flummoxed, I plonked mesen on t’ bay window sill, tapping my shoe-end against t’ brick. I decided to take mesen round t’ block a while. Maybe I’d just been unlucky and Jim had slipped out to t’ shop for some ciggies.

I gave it a good half-hour, then, still finding no one at home, I trudged off toward t’ city centre. At the junction wi’ Woodhouse Lane I found mesen facing the Fenton, a pub, I remembered now, that Jim said he frequented. I chortled. I’d find Jim again, easy peasy.

I ducked into t’ Fenton, hiked mesen onto a bar stool on t’ public bar side and ordered a pint of lager and lime. There wor a couple of flat-capped men in t’ lounge bar and, two stools along on my side, a rough-looking woman in a gaudy dress. Sixty dressed as thirty.

I drank heedlessly, tracing circles in t’ beer slops. I wor downing the dregs of my third pint when I heard t’ rough old bird say, ‘You want to go easy or you won’t last.’

Setting my empty down on t’ slop mat, I looked stonily into her face. A face that wor t’ wreckage of another age. Even her voice had been shredded by t’ years. She creaked out a smile, displaying the last of her wobbly, lipstick-stained teeth, and told me her name wor Dora. I nodded at her like I wor batting away a fly. She pulled her fingers through her dyed straw hair and adjusted one strap of her dress.

‘You not talking, stranger?’

I slid off my stool and headed for t’ door.

‘Hey, handsome, where yer going?’ she called out in her rickety voice. ‘Aw, don’t go yet. Buy me a G & T if you like? I’m good company …’

I trudged the quarter mile back into t’ city centre, a foul fog filling my brain, cutting through t’ Merrion Centre shopping mall, which wor empty and silent save for t’ flickering buzz of a faulty photo booth, passed on by t’ multi-storey and out through a filthy underpass. I wor burstin’ and the gents toilet in t’ underpass hadn’t been locked, so I reeled in. It reeked of piss.

I worn’t alone. There wor this old geezer by t’ cubicles, toying wi’ himsen, and a younger one at the trough. I pissed long and hard, sending an arc up the metal trough back. The young’un shot a glance at me and I glanced back. He worn’t much older than me. He wor half-cock, and I could feel mesen getting the same.

I nodded toward t’ cubicles, but he shook his head to mean that we should go elsewhere. I followed him out and up a back stairwell of t’ multi-storey. Only when we reached the very top did he turn toward me.

‘Safe enough here,’ he said, unzipping himsen.

I looked about. Anyone coming up them stairs would be heard long before they reached us. There wor no cars on t’ roof, so no one would surprise us from that direction neither.

‘You live round here?’ I said.

‘Just up the road. Neville Street.’

Neville Street – the parallel cul-de-sac to Blandford Gardens.

‘Can’t we go back there?’

‘I live wi’ my mum and older sister.’

‘You don’t know a Jim, do you? Lives in Blandford Gardens. Drinks in t’ Fenton.’

His eyes widened. ‘Aye, I know Jim. Been round his place loads of times.’

‘Have you now?’

‘Aye. I slip round there at night sometimes when my folks are all tucked up.’

A cold anger uncoiled in me. Still, I unzipped mesen and he dropped to his knees and took my dick in his gob even though I worn’t fully hard cos of t’ lager and the blather. I closed my eyes and concentrated on getting a stiffy. Not that I needed to. He wor good, didn’t get his teeth in t’ way and could deep-throat. Jim had trained him well, I thought. Opening my eyes now that I wor hard, I took hold of his head wi’ both hands and held him there. I wor soon going to spunk off, so I thrust deeper and made him splutter from near on gagging. He tried to pull back, but I tightened my grip on his head, thrusting into his gob ’til I basted his tonsils. I pulled out, and spunk ran across his lips and down his chin.

Then I hit him.

Unbalanced by my punch, he fell sideways. He looked up at me disbelievingly, like a trusting dog.

I hit him again, in t’ face this time, and blood oozed from a nostril. He made no sound, not a whimper. The less the reaction, the more I wanted to force one – a cry of pain, a plea to stop, even an attempt to defend himsen – but he did nowt. So I thwacked him again, hard, my fist landing firmly above his left ear. Just say summat, I wor thinking, say summat and I’ll stop. But he sat there, like a disused glove puppet, his gob half-open, his dick still peeping out of his fly.

I kicked him one last time in t’ ribs and ran down t’ stairs in threes and fours, cut back through t’ Merrion Centre and over t’ road. As I crossed it I caught sight of t’ old geezer emerging from t’ underpass, two plain-clothed coppers escorting him by t’ arms.

When I wor next delivering to Blandford Gardens, I found the Matterhorn Man all chirrupy, like there wor nowt wrong. I fathomed that the Neville Street tyke had kept shtumm. He invited me in while he looked for his velvet bag of change, which he’d mislaid in t’ kitchen somewhere.

There wor someone parked on t’ moss-green sofa, beneath t’ Matterhorn. His head jerked up toward me as I passed by t’ open lounge door.

Jim said the man wor his older brother, Steve. Anyone could see right away that he wor Jim’s brother. Knock Jim over t’ bonce wi’ a fairground mallet and that wor what he might look like: a podgier, squarer version of Jim, wi’ an extra chin, shorter legs, a beer belly and splurging love handles. Jim took it upon himsen to introduce me, which must have looked a bit odd, presenting the Corona delivery boy. I stretched out a hand, being polite. Steve looked at it wi’ an expression that slithered between uncertainty and hostility, then shook it briefly. He wore a signet ring. He looked underslept.

I excused mesen and went into t’ kitchen. Jim smiled ruefully.

‘Sorry, kid, he just turned up out of the blue. He cannae stay. It’s not the first time he’s done this. I’m guessing his missus has kicked him out again – that’s usually what this is about.’

He kissed me on t’ nose. ‘It might be best you don’t call by after your work for a wee while. Just until he’s gone.’

‘How long will that be?’

Jim had found his velvet change bag by t’ toaster.

‘Last time was about three weeks. Blethered on about getting a job and all that, but all he did was doss around the hoose all day. Trouble with Steve is he thinks the world owes him. In the end I gave him some dosh and put him on a coach back to Glasgow.’

‘Three week!’

Jim kneaded the nape of my neck. ‘He’ll not be staying that long this time, don’t you worry.’

‘Does he know?’