The Night Brother. Rosie Garland

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СКАЧАТЬ Reg says. ‘You saying I don’t?’

      ‘No! Never!’

      Reg inhales slowly and glances at me. I’m out of arm’s reach. Wilfred isn’t. ‘You saying I’m like that old tart?’

      ‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘Sounds exactly like what he’s saying.’

      There’s a horrified silence. No one drops so much as a giggle into it. Reg jabs a rigid finger into Wilfred’s chest. He reels backwards like he’s been hit with half a house brick.

      ‘No!’ he wails. ‘It was a joke! I didn’t mean you! We’re chums, aren’t we?’

      Reg roars and at the signal the whole lot of them pile on to their new enemy. I don’t hang about to see the outcome. My conscience pricks briefly about dropping Wilfred into it, but it was him or me. I show the cleanest pair of heels this side of the Mersey and run slap bang into the lady who saved me. Of course, she didn’t exactly save me. I did that for myself.

      ‘Mind where you’re going!’ she chirps. ‘Oh, it’s you. You all right?’

      ‘Course I am,’ I mumble. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

      She ought to tell me to get lost and I don’t know why she doesn’t. She ruffles my hair. I rub my head against her hand like a cat that aches to be scratched. Her fingers comb through my curls.

      ‘Bonny lad,’ she purrs.

      The words startle me back into my skin.

      ‘Leave off!’ I squeak. ‘I’m no one’s bonny anything!’

      I untangle myself from her skirts and fire homewards like a rocket. The kitchen is busy: Grandma sucking on that disgusting pipe of hers and Mam waving her hand and muttering, What a stink. Not that Grandma takes a blind bit of notice. So much for the welcoming bosom. After the night I’ve had a smile wouldn’t go amiss. I help myself to a slice of bread and dripping, plonk myself in front of the range and stare at the coals. I can’t go back to Shudehill. Reg will make my life a bloody misery. Where else can I go? What else do I have?

      ‘Is all well?’ asks Grandma, deigning to notice my presence. She taps her pipe on the edge of the table, to another complaint from Mam.

      ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ I grumble through a mouthful.

      ‘Don’t you give me any of your lip,’ she replies.

      ‘You leave him alone,’ chips in Mam without looking at me. ‘He’s my special treat, so he is.’

      ‘It wouldn’t hurt to hear you saying that about Edie once in a while.’

      Mam snorts. ‘Her? I wish things were the other way around.’

      ‘That’s half-daft. How can you dote on one and not the other?’

      ‘I’ll do as I please, thank you very much. All any mother wants is an honest-to-goodness son to do her proud. If you don’t like it, there’s the door and remember to shut it behind you.’

      I scoff my bread, looking from one to the other. Biddies. I’ll never unravel the mare’s nest between their ears. But what I do hear is an advantage I didn’t know I had. I lick my fingers and leave them to it.

      The bedroom sash is open. I clamber through the gap and ride the stone saddle of the windowsill, one foot in and one out. The sky is becoming pale as it considers the coming morning. I puff out my chest, draw the last scraps of night into my body until there’s no telling us apart.

      There was a time.

      I’ve not forgotten that land of sweet content, bright as a favourite story told at bedtime. Things aren’t the same since Edie got frozen into an obedience she imagines will thaw our flint-hearted mother into loving her. You may as well try to fold gravy. Mam can’t stand baa-lambs unless they come smothered in mint sauce.

      Edie’s worse than a mouse; at least mice chew the walls and confetti the floor with their tiny turds. Her goodness clings like quicksand. If I get sucked in, it’ll be curtains. Every night I step close and try to take her hand, like we used to, but our fingers slide through each other. It’s like she doesn’t believe in me; like she thinks I’m not real. I don’t know what more I can do.

      My chest is hot and tight. I grind my teeth until the feeling passes. If you’ve been booted out of Eden, moping like a snot-nosed toddlekins won’t bring it back. I will not think about things I can’t have. Fairy tales are for the cradle and I left that a long while ago.

      Living in a houseful of women has dragged me down to their simpering level. I must toughen up if I’m going to make my way in this wide world. I’m not a bad lad; not the type to tie cans to a cat’s tail, string them up by their paws, set them on fire or any one of the bloody things boys do. But there’s no point being soft. In this life, you’re either a ginger tom swaggering the streets or a cowering kitten that gets trampled underfoot. I’ll let tonight be a lesson. My fault for not standing my ground, for being caught unawares. God helps those who help themselves.

      I’m not lonely. Not by a long chalk. I just need to meet the right fellows, that’s all. The sort of pals who will stick by a chap through thick and thin. So what if I have to go to ground for a while? I’ve got tomorrow night, even if I have to steer clear of Shudehill. There’s always another night. There has to be. A man must have dreams.

       EDIE

       1900–1901

      I grow up with my ear to the floor, listening to Ma and Nana fight.

      They argue about the beer, the takings, the sawdust, the spittoons, the weather, the dirt on the doorstep. If they chose the kitchen, I’d be none the wiser. But they go at it hammer and tongs in the scullery, beneath my room. Maybe they think I’m asleep; maybe they think me too much of a mouse to eavesdrop; maybe they don’t care either way. It is such a habitual lullaby I learn to sleep through it, much in the way that folk who live next to the Liverpool line slumber through the rattle of trains.

      So things continue. The old century tips into the new, not that it makes a scrap of difference to my days. My height belies my age. At thirteen I overtop every sixteen-year-old hereabouts: a gangling beanpole of a girl as graceful as a donkey with three legs.

      Ma won’t let me hide upstairs and read my schoolbooks, so I help out in The Comet. The customers make jokes at their plain Jane barmaid and I never master Ma’s knack for laughing yet keeping them at arm’s length at the same time. That’s not to say they are wicked folk; they are our neighbours and a mild crew by and large. Night after night, month after month, I listen to the same conversations about dogs and wives; who’s drowned in the Bridgewater; who’s been flattened by a cart. I ache for something I cannot put my finger on. But there’s no point wishing on half a wishbone, or setting my heart on stars when the likes of me won’t climb higher than the chimney.

      So I nod, smile, serve beer and dread Thursdays. It is the day the ginger-moustached groper drops in, regular as the man from the Pearl come for his penny. I grow cleverer at avoiding him, although nothing stops his gaze following me around the room and singeing holes in my СКАЧАТЬ