The old girl was a soft touch then so I got her to show me how to do the shiv.
I practised on everybody. My mum, Dix, the brats at school, creeps in the street. I got the Head. I even got Ian’s dudes one time when they was feeling the mean Fridays and was all tanked up. I got them real good and nowadays they don’t call me those names no more.
When it was Christmas I asked my mum for everything I could think of. Make-up, clothes, Nike trainers, a Walkman, a music centre with a CD player, you name it I wanted it and she come up sweet. Don’t know where she found the juice to pay for all them things because you don’t get big money working at the Co-op but I wasn’t going to argue. Dixey give me lots too. Best Christmas I ever had and I made Mum let Longman stay nights with me. Up to then we’d been doing it outside but I never did enjoy getting my arse frozen off, though he didn’t seem to mind the frigging frost. She didn’t say much about Longman being there, except on Christmas Day when she bawled a bit when we stayed in bed. But then, she was getting proper grey round the gills. I reckoned she weren’t long for this world, see?
I stopped going down the Hob when the weather turned nasty. I ain’t good in the rain and after Christmas Longman just stayed in with us, fiddling with my CD and screwing me and that was like all I wanted. Besides the old girl had shown me how to do the shiv so sod her, I thought.
Past the New Year though, that bugger Longman ups and leaves. One minute he was listening to some old Motown crap of Mum’s on the music centre – the next he’s halfway down the garden path. I went after him yelling but he just gets over the fence into the field next door and disappears. I swears fit to bust. Who cares about the odd swear? The old girl ain’t there.
Sneaky bastard, that Longman. After all I done for him!
I waits for him to come back that night but he didn’t and I got mad. So I went round town doing the shiv to any creep what asked for it. Then I met some geyser coming out a pub and I let him do it to me round the back. He weren’t much cop but he give me a tenner and that paid for a few drinks.
Up at the Ridge there weren’t no sign of Ringman neither and I laddered my best tights climbing about round them bastard bushes looking for him.
‘There ain’t nothing for it,’ I says to myself, ‘I’ll have to go and see the old girl.’
But you wouldn’t credit it, when I goes up Hob’s she taken a bloody powder too.
I got right moody that January, see?
‘Missis! Where you been?’
‘Around, girl. Where you been?’
‘Looking for you.’
‘You’re a bare-faced liar, Nipper. I hope you passed a merry Christmas.’
‘Yeah, it was great. Look, where the hell’s Longman?’
‘He had to go.’
‘Where? When’s he coming back?’
‘Stone me, I never seen a girl so desperate for sex as you, love. Proper little nymphomaniac, you is.’
‘Oh shut it, Missis. Just tell me where Longman’s hiding out.’
‘Don’t you tell me to shut it, Nipper. You try and remember I don’t take no cheek.’
‘I ain’t frightened of you, Missis. I knows what I knows. I can hurt you too now.’
‘Oh no, dear. No, no, no. You can’t pull no tricks on me. I ain’t made quite the same as other folks and you never knows what I might do next if you was to try it, hey? It don’t make sense to make me mad, do it?’
‘Nah, well, all right. Just as long as you tell me where Longman is.’
‘Ah yes, Longman. Well, Nipper, Longman’s having his kip.’
‘Like Ringman?’
‘Yeah, just like Ringman. But don’t you fret. They’ll wake up in time.’
‘In time for what?’
‘For the baby, sweetheart. For the birth. And afterwards.’
‘But what about … ?’
‘I can arrange that too, girl. I arranged the rest, didn’t I? Look at you! No unsightly lump. No morning sickness. No backaches. No funny cravings. A fifteen-year-old sylph, you is. And so pretty. It’d make Foreman’s heart melt to look at you.’
‘Foreman! I ain’t going with Foreman!’
‘Foreman’s better even than Longman.’
‘Oh, come on, Missis. Foreman’s a nasty old sod. I seen him down the square, evenings. He’s dirty and he smells. The lads throw their cans at him when he’s pissed. I seen him throw up all over the bus shelter. He’s well out of order.’
‘Never judge by the outside, Nipper. If I’d have judged by your outside you would never have got where you is now.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You ever look in the mirror? You look incredible clean, girl, like some kid’s Barbie Doll. You’re so pretty, you’re boring. But I thinks hard when I sees you and I waits till I sees your insides. Then I knows.’
‘What? What you know?’
‘You’re the spirit of the age, see? The times. What you are is what this place is. You’re what they calls an epitome. See, I likes to take what I can and I likes to get it right. I likes an accurate reflection and I likes to enter into the spirit of the thing, you get me?’
‘What you mean, Missis? Can’t you talk straight?’
‘Oh sure, little Gemma. I can talk straight. Yeah, I can do that. So. You want a man, right?’
‘I want Longman.’
‘Ah no, ducks, you want Foreman. I can get you Foreman. Come on, now. Let’s have a little sing. Join in. You know this one …
‘Dance, Foreman, dance.
Dance, my good men, every one.
For Foreman, he can dance alone.
Foreman, he can dance alone …’
‘No, Missis, not him.’
‘Ah, here he is, sweetheart. You just take a look in his trousers. Go on, don’t be shy. Go on, take a peek.’
‘No, Missis …’
‘Where’s the harm?’
All February Mum was like a zombie from Outer Space. She didn’t seem to notice me and Foreman rabbiting about in the house at all. In the morning she went down the Co-op and then she come back home at tea-time knackered and quiet and sat in front of the telly till it was time for bed.
Dix come in some nights with her kids and they all sits down by the telly and just watches and watches. It don’t matter what. They watches whatever. One night I gets up out of bed and I goes down to the front room and watches them. I get the flipper switch and fiddles around all over the shop. I give them a bit of Channel Four film in Frog where you has to read the words and they don’t seem to mind that and then we goes over to Newsnight with