His mother was sewing buttons on one of Royston’s grey school shirts, occasionally looking up at the news bulletin on the telly. Denise was sitting on the sofa, chatting away to one of her friends on the phone. She was talking about some party or other and asking if she could borrow a pair of shoes.
‘You waan me to warm up your dinner, Lincoln?’ Hortense offered.
‘No, it’s alright, Mummy, I can do it.’
Biscuit went to the kitchen and lit two gas rings. He put a dab of margarine in the rice and peas saucepan and replaced the lid, then poured half a cup of water into the boiled chicken pot, stirring it with a fork. He checked his watch, wondering if it wasn’t too late to travel up to Brixton Hill and call on Carol. She was expecting him and he hated letting her down. His thoughts were interrupted by a manic banging on the front door.
‘Who ah bang ’pon me door so?’ Hortense queried. ‘Lincoln, ’ow many times ’ave me tell you fe tell your friends dem not to bang down me door!’
Biscuit went to the door. ‘Easy nuh, man. You sound like beast to rarted.’
A frantic thirty-something white woman, whose elfin-like face didn’t quite match her heavy frame, stood on the balcony. The woman seemed to have been crying for days. Her long auburn hair wouldn’t have recognised a comb, and underneath the tear stains her face was a pink mass of sadness. She was wearing a tatty dressing gown and slippers.
‘Where’s your mum, Lincoln?’ she asked desperately.
Before Biscuit could reply, the lady was past him and inside the lounge. Hortense stopped sewing and looked up in concern. Biscuit returned to the kitchen and peered through the doorway as his mother got to her feet and switched off the telly. Denise paused in her conversation and ran her eyes over the white woman’s blotched face.
‘Hortense, I just don’t know what I’m gonna do,’ the white woman whimpered, holding her temples within her palms and then shaking her head. ‘I haven’t seen Frank for two days, they cut off the electric yesterday, the kids are hungry, I ain’t got no money.’ She covered her face with her hands, shifting her feet in an unsteady semicircle. ‘I just can’t carry on, Hortense. I’ve had it up to ’ere. Fucking social are no use, the gas people are on my case and Frank’s gone. He’s fucking gone, without a fucking word. He’s just fucking gone!’
‘Stella, slow down, you’re talking too fast,’ Hortense replied, ushering her friend to sit beside her. Stella wrapped her arms around her stomach as if she was suffering some cramp, then dropped herself on the sofa.
‘I might as well fucking kill myself. Frank’s gone, how could he just go like that? I’m at my wits’ end. I dunno where I’m turning. How could he fucking leave me like this!’
Hortense put her arms around the shoulders of her friend. Biscuit watched from the kitchen, embarrassed by Stella’s sobbing and cursing Frank under his breath. Denise said a quick goodbye to her friend and looked on, wondering what she could do to help.
‘Denise! Don’t jus’ sit der! Run downstairs an’ get Tommy an’ Sarah. Den gi’ dem somet’ing to eat,’ Hortense ordered her daughter aggressively. ‘An’ mek Stella ah cup ah tea.’
Royston poked his face around the door frame to see what the commotion was all about. ‘Royston!’ Hortense yelled. ‘Go back to your bed before me bus’ your backside.’
‘I just can’t take it no more,’ Stella wept. ‘Frank went for a job interview for a labouring job the other day, but he didn’t get it. Since then he’s been acting all funny. I thought he might snap out of it after a while. But he’s gone. I’ve phoned his mum but he ain’t been ’round there. I even phoned his brother in Birmingham. I dunno where he is.’
Denise returned with two bewildered children in tow. The youngest child, a girl, gripped her teddy tightly as her brother held on grimly to an old Beano magazine. They edged into the room as if embarrassed to see their mother in such a state. The girl covered her face with the bear.
‘Hiya, Tommy,’ Royston greeted, braving the hallway once again. ‘Hiya, Sarah.’
‘Royston!’ Hortense screamed. ‘If me ’ave fe tell you again your backside will be sizzling like fried chicken-back! Go to your bed!’
On sight of her children, Stella palmed away her tears, trying to regain her composure. Hortense tenderly stroked her friend’s hair. Denise stood at the kitchen doorway waiting for instructions, while Biscuit guiltily prepared his dinner. ‘Gi de pickney dem some bun an’ cheese,’ Hortense ordered. ‘De last time we baby-sit fe dem, dey did favour it.’
Biscuit didn’t want to get stuck with all this woman’s business. He took his dinner to his bedroom on a tray, catching Royston standing by the door, feeling pushed out of the drama.
‘Wha’ did Mummy say?’ Biscuit scolded. ‘Get to your blasted bed.’
Royston did as he was told while he watched his brother eat his dinner. ‘Why was Stella crying?’ he asked.
‘Cos Frank’s gone missing an’ she ain’t got no money.’
‘Did Frank go missing cos he can’t find a job?’
‘Somet’ing like dat.’
‘So, when people been looking for a job for a long time, and they can’t find one, do they do what Frank done? Just go somewhere and go missing?’
Biscuit didn’t answer. In a strange way, he thought his brother was right. People did go missing when they couldn’t find work. They went missing in the head. Some, like Biscuit himself, sought to provide by illegal means. Every Saturday morning he witnessed the exodus of single mothers to various prisons throughout the country to visit their providers, rationing the week’s social security cheque to afford the fares. He knew that some of these desperate women, especially the ones with children, had already shacked up with other men who came by their incomes via illegal means, starting the cycle all over again. He wondered when the day would come when his mother would have to visit him only on Saturdays.
Frank was a decent guy, always offering Biscuit a can of beer if he could afford it. And he loved his kids, forever taking them out to the park. But he hadn’t worked in a steady job for nearly three years. From the smart-dressed guy Biscuit knew as a child, Frank had transformed into an unshaven figure who raged at the staff in the job centre for a chance of work, any work. With Frank’s brooding and getting under his wife’s feet at home, the rows with Stella had increased, and so did the money they owed.
Biscuit dropped a naked chicken bone on his plate then reached up to take two tenners from the top of his wardrobe, calling out to his mother, ‘Mummy, come ’ere for a sec, I waan chat to you.’
Hortense ambled into her sons’ room, shaking her head as she searched her eldest son’s eyes. ‘She’s inna right state,’ she said softly, bringing her gaze down to the carpet. ‘Me nuh know wha fe say to her, I really don’t. She jus’ bawlin’ an bawlin’. Frank dis an’ Frank dat. If me see ’im me gwarn gi’ ’im two bitch lick. Me cyan’t tek Stella noise inna me ’ead. An’ de two pickney dem jus’ ah si’ down quiet like mice, looking at dem mudder.’
Biscuit glanced quickly at the top of the wardrobe to check if his bags of herb were out of his mother’s sight. A powerful surge of guilt took hold of him as he slowly raised his right hand that clutched two ten-pound notes. ‘Control dis for her,’ he offered.
Hortense looked at the cash for five seconds before opening her left palm. ‘Y’know Lincoln, yu ’ave ah ’eart. Like I said before, me nuh waan to know weh yu get your money from. But yu ’ave ah ’eart. God bless.’