fished one off the van and strolled up to t’ house, tossing and catching it as if it wor a baton.
As I pushed the door wi’ my shoulder a breeze gusted in, lifting the hallway linoleum at its edges.
Vanessa lived on t’ ground floor. I paused in t’ hallway at the foot of t’ stairs, my eye following the sweep of t’ banister rail upward into t’ gloom, my nostrils twitching to t’ stale traces of over-fried and boiled food, my ears hearing the steady plopping from t’ laundry slung over t’ banisters.
Although Vanessa’s door wor open, I knocked anyway and entered without waiting.
‘Here he is!’
I set the coke bottle on t’ sideboard, parked mesen on one arm of her grubby sofa.
Vanessa wor a big woman wi’ matted strawberry-blonde hair and a round, pocked face. I tried not to stare at t’ folds of pale skin slithering from her faded pink halterneck dress. Worn’t she cold? I dunked my teabag as she gabbled on in her brittle voice, talking about business mostly. All t’ while she kept one eye on t’ street, t’other on t’ nipper in plastic pants that wor shuffling itsen toward me across t’ lino floor. Vanessa crossed her plump legs and let one shoe dangle. Her feet wor deformed by years of stilettos. Chips of red varnish on her toenails.
‘God, I hate this weather – didn’t know you’d got hitched, Eric,’ Vanessa said in one breath.
‘I’m not.’
‘What’s wi’ t’ ring then?’
‘Engaged.’
‘Ooh, engaged? To that … what’s her name … Julie, is it?’
‘No, not her … to Karen.’
‘Last I heard you wor knockin’ about wi’ a Julie.’
‘Aye. Aye, I wor – but it’s Karen now.’
The subject of t’ ring shunted off into a siding, Vanessa turned her attention to me.
‘Heard a lot about you,’ she oozed. ‘Eric tells me all sorts, he does.’
My innards wor squirming like a bag of mealy worms. When, for pity’s sake, did Eric get to blather on to Vanessa about rings and marriage? We only stopped by when we were on t’ round, didn’t we?
They wor both looking at me expectantly. The ring. Now that I’d clapped eyes on it, it had a permanent look. No hacking that off.
‘All good, I ’ope,’ I mumbled.
‘Well, now, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ Vanessa teased. ‘Nice-looking lad, though, ain’t he, Eric?’
‘If you say so.’
‘Trust me. Make some girl very happy one day, mark my words.’
Friggin’ ’ell. Not the done thing – glowing like hot coals in front of a prozzie.
‘Oh, he’s not still a virgin, is he Eric?’
‘What you asking me for? He’s a bit of a dark horse, this one. I reckon there’s summat going on, what wi’ me dropping him off in town after t’ round every week, but he’s keeping mum about her.’
Eric winked at me.
‘A dark horse, eh?’ Vanessa purred. ‘I lay bets on dark horses, them quiet ones wi’ t’ broad smiles and not much to say for themsens. They’re t’ ones you have to watch.’
Luckily for me, Vanessa’s attention wor distracted by her toddler, who wor balanced on fat little legs, trying to clamber onto a chair, fingers stretching toward t’ Coke bottle.
‘Leave it. Leave it, Jase! I said effin’ leave it!’
She scooped up the toddler wi’ one arm and plonked him firmly back onto a different part of t’ lino. The room filled up wi’ a piercing wail.
‘Effin’ kids! Always wantin’ whatever they clap eyes on. I want this, I want that. I want, I want, I want. Well I bloody want, but it don’t mean I can ’ave!’
The wailing brought in Vanessa’s older kid from out in t’ corridor, yelling excitedly. Spotting us, he hid himsen behind his arm, gigglin’, ’til he spied the Coke bottle on t’ sideboard too.
‘Yer can ’ave some later, Barry. Wi’ yer tea. Take Jase out in t’ corridor, there’s a luv.’
Barry ran out again. The toddler set off after him, toppling over, making us all erupt, then hauled himsen up again onto his crooked little legs.
Vanessa moved to t’ window, from where she could keep an eye open for business. There wor fewer punters about in t’ daytime, but then, she said, fewer girls wor out working. The banter turned to Emily Jackson, the murdered woman, who like Wilma, like Vanessa hersen, wor a mother an’ all.
Vanessa repositioned the one-bar electric fire toward her legs.
‘I didn’t know her, Emily. She worn’t no regular. I hear she used to hang out at the Gaiety and the Room at the Top club. But that don’t mean owt.’
She patted the corners of her mouth wi’ a tissue, her gaze fixed on t’ gap between t’ gateposts. For a moment it seemed she had a punter. She sat upright, patting her hair, projecting her breasts. Then she relaxed her posture. The punter had moved on.
‘He’ll be back,’ she said, taking a long drag on her ciggie. ‘The girls,’ she said, exhaling upward, ‘are mostly working team-handed. They’ll keep it up for a week or two, and then they’ll forget. Trust me.’
She screwed her fag end into t’ ashtray and lit another. ‘When you’ve been in business as long as I have, you can smell a bad’un.’
She smiled at us both, a smile, I saw, that wor too light for t’ effort she gave it.
I lay on my bed leafing through t’ local rag. They didn’t waste much ink on Emily. Just a brief mention of a second prozzie murder in Chapeltown, and a fuzzy photo. Whores get what’s coming is what most folk thought. If folk thought at all.
I could hear sis in t’ bath. She wor always having baths. No wonder t’ reservoir levels wor so low. I slipped across t’ landing into her bedroom and, sliding open a drawer, took out the diary from under t’ layers of knickers. I flipped it open where a blue biro wor resting in t’ spine.
My fingers danced grubbily through t’ pages. Her scribble wor hard to read, and she’d been scrawling biro flowers and stick figures in t’ margins. It wor t’ usual friggin’ rubbish. Some boys had been carving band names in t’ wooden bus shelter (boring), summat about copying her French homework off Emma in return for buying Emma some fags (learning fast there, sis), and some boy called Adam had smiled at her in t’ corridor.
I turned the page. Sunday. She’d been listening to t’ top thirty pop charts and marking down t’ chart positions in a special chart book. What friggin’ chart book? My eyes skimmed over t’ shoes and bags strewn across t’ carpet, the teddies, frogs and gonks on t’ bed, the washing slithering out of t’ wicker basket. My hand hovered over all t’ girly clutter on t’ small dressing table that Mitch had put together for her in t’ garage last winter, not wanting to move owt in case she clocked it.
I realised I could hear t’ bath water gurgling away down t’ pipes. I flipped the diary shut and scuttled back to my room. I threw mesen on t’ bed and laughed deliciously. A close call wor always more satisfying than getting away clean and easy.
‘Charts!’ I snorted under my breath. ‘Charts!’
09/05/1976 (survived)
Friday night, as usual, we all went for a chinky and then