his head lowered, trying to roll a cigarette, his hands shaking and the scraps of tobacco spilling out as we
He couldn’t remember her name but he knew she knew Laura. Thought she might know something. Thought she might have seen her, said You seen Laura lately and she looked back at him and said You what? with her eyes all narrowed and dark. Stepping back and still looking up and down the street in case she missed something, and her mates further down the road looking over. He said You know Laura don’t you, I thought I’d seen you with her, only I’ve been looking for her, I’ve been looking around and I can’t find her. Something’s happened, I need to find her, I need to talk to her. Most he’d said all day by a long way and he could really feel it happening now he could feel the rattle coming on and weren’t nothing much he could do. She said What? What’s happened? He said Her dad, something’s happened to her dad, I can’t really, I mean I want to talk to her first, I need to. She said Oh fuck. She said No, love, I aint seen her. She said You need some help rolling that fag you look done in. He said You got any gear you know where I can get any gear, my man’s not answering. He said I’m fucking desperate and she smiled and backed away and said Aint we all. Ask him, she said. In that car. Bloke looked at him as he walked over, looked at Einstein, slid the window open a crack and nodded like he was giving him permission to speak. I’m after some gear, Danny said quietly. Ten pound dark. He was getting the note out from his sock even while the bloke was shaking his head. Sorry, mate, he said, I’m all out. Supply problems innit. Danny holding the money out in disbelief, Einstein lifting a foot to scratch at the car door, and the bloke going Is your dog stupid or what get him the fuck away from my car, you four-eyed
Could feel the note in his sock as he walked away, crumpled and damp with sweat and whatever else his feet were wet with. Weren’t used to having cash on him for that long. Weren’t normally a problem spending the stuff but more like getting hold of it in the first place. Begging off people on their way to work, selling the Issue, thieving razors and batteries and meat and anything else they could sell in the pub, begging again at lunchtime, keeping up with whoever was on giro day and getting something out of them. And counting the money all the time, taking care of the pennies until there was enough for a ten-pound bag to keep them going while they did it all over again. Three or four times a day, measuring out the hours, filling their pockets with shrapnel until they could change it for gear. Having a dig and a nod and then getting up and starting all over again. Full-time job just keeping the rattles off. Takes a lot of effort maintaining the thing, a lot of fucking what, resourcefulness. The girls on the road did the best, made the most money and bought the most gear, the best gear. The sight of them there and they weren’t dressed for the weather. Must be good business even today. Must be good business every single day of the year. Basic law of supply and desire and there’s always a desire for that. Don’t need no marketing and don’t never see them going short of
Wouldn’t mind a bit himself sometimes. Other priorities most of the time but just now and again. A bit of, fucking, come over here and get some, fucking, how you like that and give us your, oh, fucking
Other things to worry about now though, such as
Down by the canal and the sickness rising in him, the rattles taking hold. Cramps in his stomach, aching in his legs his back his bones. Pulling down his trousers behind a bush because he can’t keep it from rushing out, black and steaming on the frozen ground and nothing to clean himself with, nothing to do but pull up his trousers and try to do something about it later. When he gets the chance, if he gets the chance, when he’s scored and sorted and feeling able to face it. Sweating and cold and feeling it badly now and where’s Mike when you need him. Can’t get rid of the cunt most days and now he’s
Shouldn’t have gone to his brother’s house. Should have known it wouldn’t make no difference it being Christmas. If he’d wanted to play families he should have stayed at Robert’s with the others. Or he should have gone and seen Laura again and made up for the time before. Probably it was too late now. Was always too late was how it felt sometimes. Already felt too late the first time he met her. Which was when, hanging around outside the Catholic church waiting for the lunch project to open and she asked him for a smoke and he actually had some tobacco so that felt like the first thing that had gone right for days, the way she looked impressed, the way she smiled when he said Don’t tell no one and said I won’t if you won’t. Like it meant something else. Like it meant anything. Cracked red sores around her mouth which opened up when she smiled. Dark sagging skin beneath her eyes. Her face pinched and pale and her hair thin and lank but it weren’t hard to think she’d been fucking gorgeous one time but not for a while. Rolled a fag for her and she said Oh cheers mate you’re a diamond you’re a star. Bobbing up and down on her toes like she was cold but it weren’t a cold day at all. Scratching her neck and scratching the back of her head and scratching her face and when she lit the fag she sucked so hard he thought she might smoke the whole lot in one go. Obvious it was more than tobacco she had a craving for. Obvious that tobacco weren’t hardly making her feel better at all. Soon as she turned away Mike was there in his ear giving it all You don’t wanna
Left at the boarded-up petrol station with the weeds where the pumps used to be, weaving up through the estate between the railway and the ringroad, turn left turn right, turn left turn right, past all those white walled houses with cars parked in the gardens, and the low wooden fences mostly broken, and ugly-sounding dogs jumping up behind the thin front doors. Two lads waiting by a phonebox on the corner, pacing and fidgeting and looking around so he said You waiting to score? Two lads looking at each other. One of them said Yes, mate, why, you looking? If you wait up here you can buy a bag off our kid as long as you split it. Other one said You got the time, mate, and Danny took his phone out to have a look, and that was a mistake because one of them punched him in the face and took the phone and told him to fuck off. Nothing you can do when that happens and it was his own fault. Einstein started barking and jumping up at them but he pulled her away and legged it down the road, slipping on some ice on the corner and smacking his head on the cold hard ground but clambering up and grabbing his glasses and running again in case the blokes came along for more. What else can you do you can’t do nothing always some cunt after the last little bit you
Jesus believe I’d be a generous man if I’d ever had the chance
And what’s your excuse la
Or if we lived by the sea, if we were fucking Vikings or something, we’d put him in a boat and send him out on the water all ablaze and that. Whole crew of us, all his family and friends, carrying him down to the shore with all the things he’d need for his final journey, like his sword and shield, his armour, his helmet, his what his breastplate and that, plus the women carrying flowers and baskets of fruit, bread, meat, a fucking what is it a flagon of wine and put it all in the boat with him and cover it with straw and put our grievous fucking shoulders to the creaking timbers of the boat and push him out across the wet sand to the sea and throw a match in and watch him burn as he drifts further
A what is it a breastplate
If it hadn’t taken him so long to get back he’d have some gear by now. He could have been there with Robert, he could have stopped whatever it was that had happened. He’d have some gear now and he wouldn’t be rattling like this. And probably Laura would be there, at the flat, and he wouldn’t be chasing around looking for her, looking for anyone, looking for someone to tell. She’d be sitting on the floor by Robert’s chair, tying and untying her bootlaces, talking to him quietly or getting him drinks or making sure he had something to eat. Or she’d be sitting on the bed in the little front bedroom, the only bed in the flat, the bedroom which had been hers when she was a kid and which she’d moved into for a while when she first came back to live with her dad. The room where she went for a dig because he said he didn’t want to watch anyone doing that least of all her. Most people used the kitchen but she always liked to go in there. Probably Heather
