Sit a moment.’
I sat. Today I had time. Eric wor knobbing some housewife at number 78, but I worn’t going to tell Mrs Husk that. She sloughed into t’ kitchen to fetch her empty. From my spot in t’ lounge I said in a loud voice, ‘My gran’s just moved house.’
I didn’t usually blather about t’ folks, but if I kept Mrs Husk conversationalising then I knew where she wor. Gran had upped sticks, sold sticks and moved about a mile across town into a small, modern, first-floor flat. Fitted carpets, new boiler, double glazing, window locks.
She’d taken as good as nowt wi’ her, but had instructed Mr Cowley – Second Hand Furniture – House Clearances, screamed the black letters on t’ day-glo orange sign – to cart away all t’ stuff that Mother had grown up about, sat at, played under, slept on. ‘Sold without sentiment,’ Mother had said bitterly. ‘Sold for a pittance.’
Mother then blathered on about feeling ‘complicit in a dirty crime’, denying a man barely cold in t’ ground all trace of his time on this earth. Wiping him clean of our lives, she called it, as if, she said, it wor her own childhood that had been parcelled up and disposed of in such an underhand manner. I wor thinking, ‘It’s only stuff.’
I thought Gran had done t’ right thing. It meant we didn’t have to have any of it. Mind you, we did end up wi’ some friggin’ boat-shaped lamp wi’ a parchment sail shade.
While I wor waiting on Mrs Husk to come back from t’ kitchen wi’ her empty ginger-beer bottle I picked up a framed photo from t’ side table. An old photo of a man and woman at t’ coast somewhere. They wor posing stiffly and smirking at t’ camera. The wind had blown the woman’s hair across her face and the camera had caught her pushing it aside wi’ her hand.
‘Is this you and Mr Husk?’
‘Is what me?’
‘This photo. Is it you?’
She sidled over, handed me t’ empty ginger beer bottle and peered at t’ photo.
‘That? Aye, it is. That wor took at Whitby. A long while back.’
She took the photo from me and set it back on t’ side table. ‘Now I want you to rub some ointment into t’ back of my calf. I can’t do it mesen, I go all funny.’
I sighed. Mrs Husk parked hersen in her chair and rolled down her knee-length stocking to expose her bare leg. Taking the ointment from her, I squeezed a little onto my palm. Her skin moved in loose ripples under my kneading fingers, as if she wor in a coat too big for her tiny frame. I distracted mesen by thinking of Eric’s bare arse rising and falling over at number 78. I wor getting a stiffy, so I decided it might be better to make some more idle chat.
‘So, when he died, I guess he didn’t leave you much, then?’
‘When who died?’
‘Mr Husk. When he passed on. I wor saying that he didn’t leave you no money?’
‘Hah! Die? Who said owt ’bout him being dead? For all I know he might be still swanning about somewhere. No lad, he walked out on me a long while back, went off wi’ another woman. There, I’ve said it, never thought I’d say these things to a complete stranger.’
‘I’m not a stranger, Mrs Husk, I’m your Corona van boy.’
‘Well, no, I suppose not, lad. It wor my fault, you see. I put him on a pedestal, which never does, does it, putting a man on a pedestal? Put a man on a pedestal and it goes to his head. He came back one time. We wor living over Beeston way then. There wor a knock on t’ door, and there he stood, bold as brass in his brand-new overcoat, suitcase by his side, looking reet dapper. He didn’t say nowt, just stood there, waiting for … waiting for me to let him in, I suppose. Trouble wor, I had a friend round for tea, didn’t I? So I said to him, I said, “It’s not convenient, come back later.”’
‘And did he?’
‘Did he what?’
‘Come back?’
‘No lad. Never saw hair nor hide.’
‘Sorry to hear that, Mrs Husk.’
‘Aye, well it’s a rum world, it is that.’
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