Trilogy Collection. Julie Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ Vinnie crumpled up his chip bag and knocked hard on the window. ‘Police, open up!’ he shouted.

      Little Robbie, the eldest kid, looked up and smiled at him and Lyndsey, at once alert, jumped up from her chair. Seeing Vinnie grinning in at her, she relaxed and sat down again and was back slumped by the time he’d let himself in through the unlocked back door. ‘Fucking divvy!’ she said as the kids all ran to jump up at their uncle.

      ‘All right kids, calm down,’ he said, fending them off. ‘Fuckin’ hell, Lynds, you wanna tell him to give that pipe a rest – these three are high as kites!’

      ‘Cheeky fucker,’ she responded, clearly less out of it than she looked. ‘You’re not too old to get your arse smacked, you know.’ Then her tone changed. ‘Aw, put ’em to bed for us, will you, Vin?’ She looked at him hopefully. ‘I’ll do another mix if I can get the pipe off Marty-fucking-Feldman there. Just look at them fucking eyes. Oi! Numpty – pipe!’

      It was always like this and Vinnie wasn’t about to say no to her. Someone needed to look after the poor little fuckers. Vinnie picked his nieces up, one giggling on each arm. ‘C’mon then, mate,’ he said to Robbie, then, choosing his route carefully over the shoes and clothes that had been left all over the floor, took them all up to bed.

      Sammy and Lou shared bunk beds in the same bedroom as their brother, and Vinnie took his usual deep breath of the clear air on the tiny landing before going into the room. It never changed – it stank of piss and always made him retch.

      ‘Will you play with us, Uncle Vinnie? Just for a little bit?’ asked Robbie.

      Vinnie shook his head. ‘Not tonight, matey. You three need some sleep. It’s late and your mam wants me downstairs. I’m sleeping on your couch though,’ he added, while casting around for some wearable nightwear. ‘So we can play in the morning, all right?’

      Having settled the kids, Vinnie went down to join Lyndsey and Robbo. At least when they were stoned they shared the hash out. Not like if they’d been on the other stuff. He hated them then. That was the trouble with coming here, though; you either walked in and fucking floated out or you entered a war zone. You never knew what you might find.

      ‘Don’t suppose you’ve heard about me, then?’ Vinnie asked as he sat on the couch. Clearly not. His sister and Robbo just looked puzzled. ‘I’m getting sent down, aren’t I?’ he said. ‘Next week. Fuckin’ right piss-take.’

      ‘Fuck off!’ laughed Robbo. ‘You’re only 13. They can’t fucking send you down at your age!’

      Vinnie glared at the idiot. He hated him, and couldn’t understand what his sister saw in him. ‘Well they are. Durr! They know I did the fucking bingo hall and the youthy. Fucking Saggy Tits came up today, said it was all decided in court yesterday. But, of course, me mother didn’t attend, did she?’

      ‘Aw, here love,’ Lyndsey said as she passed Vinnie a joint. He looked at it, smiling at her with something approaching pity. She was well gone now, her eyes just a pair of slits in her face. A far cry from the stunner she’d once been, way back. Now she just looked fucking tragic. ‘It don’t really surprise me about her though. They don’t serve bitter in court, do they?’ She tipped her head back and laughed at her own joke. Vinnie didn’t. ‘And you have to admit, Vin, you had it coming, mate.’

      He lit the paper, watched the stray ends of tobacco flare and redden. Perhaps having a smoke would give him some more of the Dutch courage he needed. Was going to keep needing, in fact. ‘Cheers for the moral support and all that,’ he said. ‘I’m not bothered anyway. Piece of piss approved school’ll be.’

      Robbo opened his mouth to speak but started to choke instead – either over Vinnie’s words or the smoke that wreathed his face. ‘Approved school?’ he spluttered finally. ‘That’s not going down, mate. The nick is going down. Armley or Thorp Arch is going down. Fucking approved school?’

      Robbo bent over to suck again on the piece of plastic tube, laughing. The homemade pipe had another tube next to the plastic one; a length of copper pipe that was wedged into the model milk bottle with a lump of plasticine. Vinnie watched, fascinated, as the dirty liquid in the bottle started to bubble. He hoped the arsehole did choke on it. Like, lethally. Who did he think he was, trying to make a cunt out of him?

      Lyndsey snatched the pipe back. ‘Shut it, you! Even if it’s not the nick, he’ll still be away, won’t he? It’s not like he’ll be allowed out fucking shopping, is it?’

      That shut him up for a bit. Good. Robbo thought he was still a fucking hard man but Vinnie knew the truth. He might have been a fighter 10 years ago, back when he was dealing, but as soon as he started getting a taste for it himself he had gone downhill fast, just like they all did. Now he was just a run-of-the-mill junkie who had no respect. It made Vinnie sick when he saw him queuing outside the post office with the family allowance book on Monday mornings. Using the money meant for food to buy a bit of red or black, or if they really did have to buy food, he would resort to a couple of bottles of Actifed. Fucking joke, Robbo was. Fucking cough medicine!

      No matter what happened the rest of the week, the kids always got took to school on Mondays. Mondays, and every other Thursday as well, because every second Thursdays were pan crack days. The days when the big money came – the dole, the big green drug token. Vinnie knew enough to know the score there. And the score was that Robbo had soon got his sister round to the junkie way of thinking. He also knew – though he wouldn’t dare mention it – that Lyndsey was on the game as well. He looked at his older sister with disgust now. The slag was all over the estate with Robbo’s two sisters, fucking giving it up all week for the price of an ounce.

      Vinnie noticed Lyndsey and the idiot had fallen asleep now, so he turned up the portable TV. He settled back onto the couch, resting his head on the arm and his legs, for want of anywhere else to put them, spread out across his inert sister’s lap. The room felt fuggy: it had taken on the familiar sickly-sweet smell of dope and in the thick lingering smoke that had settled all around him, Vinnie could barely keep his eyes open. Though he could still make out the giant picture that took pride of place above the fireplace. It was a picture of a lad – around three was his guess – whose grizzling face stared mournfully down. It was called ‘The Crying Boy’, or so his mam had told him years back. And seeing what he was looking down on here, it wasn’t fucking surprising.

      The late night news was on – more grizzling, as far as he could tell – but he wasn’t listening. His head was too full of thoughts about his impending incarceration, and what it might be like. His Uncle Charlie had once told him about the time he had gone to jail. How loads of the blokes were arse bandits and you couldn’t bend over to pick up the soap if you dropped it in the shower. Charlie was hard though, a big mean bastard with hands like coal shovels. No one messed with his uncle. He didn’t even live in a house. Throughout the day he was usually found outside the Boy and Barrel or the Old Crown, but at nights, unless it was proper freezing, at least, he slept on a bench in the town centre. If it was cold, though, he’d simply smash a window or start a fight so that he had a nice warm cell for the night. Trouble was though, Uncle Charlie and the rest of his uncles hated thieves. It was all right to rob a business or a bank or run some crooked gambling, but the youthy – Vinnie knew his Uncle Charlie would see that as shitting on your own doorstep. And shitting on your own doorstep was the lowest of the low. He wasn’t stupid; he knew that. Just like he knew Charlie and his lot slagged him off to his mam. Fuck that, then, he wouldn’t be going to Charlie for advice.

      Vinnie had drifted off to sleep at last, dreaming about fighting off giant arse bandits and sharing a cell with his Uncle Charlie.

      He СКАЧАТЬ