Chapter 29
Leo
Bin juice. All over me.
My headache wants to split me open. I wonder what would fall out of me. Probably not far off what I’m already sat in. Liquid, dark and sticky, like bile. A congealed concoction of dead veg, fag ash (with bits in it). Shards of glass. Of regret.
I like to say I don’t regret anything, but in moments like this I don’t believe myself. My anxiety – that spindly fucking witch – robs that from me. She’s on me like a hound today. So close I can’t breathe properly, nails dug in so deep that I feel like she is me. She’s fucking brutal. Evil.
Insidious.
I like that word. I get it. Some things just spread, and I’m not talking about rashes.
Those clear up if you treat them. I would know.
So would all the nurses at Dean Street STI clinic, where they all call me Liability Leo – Liability Leo’s back – What is it this time?
– There’s access to counsellors if you need it, we suggest you accept the referral.
I’ll have to go again, probably tomorrow.
Kez was right – she had me clocked. I haven’t been taking my PrEP.
At least I have a bit of charge on my phone. I pull myself out of the bin and walk to the park, my head throbbing like a cunt the whole way.
Priory Park.
This park is annoying and I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe cos it’s not actually a park. More like a fucking garden. All pruned flower beds and the grass is mown. There’s not even a shitty swing set in sight. It feels like it’s private. Like something exclusive. For residents only.
It’s pissing down too.
I thought I wanted her to help me, last night, when I was in the bin.
Silly little bin brain was very wrong.
What I actually want is to score again.
What I can’t figure out is what she wants.
It’s weird. She doesn’t fancy me. I don’t think so, anyway.
She might. Fancy a bit of chavvy-gay. Lots of people have that fantasy.
They like the danger, cos their life is so dull.
Or I’ve thought maybe she’s a journalist doing some shitty annoying Panorama-thing about the state of young gays these days, but she didn’t record anything.
I don’t think. And I honestly don’t think she’s brave enough to do that shit.
Everything reads on her face. It’s all over her. I can see her fear. Smell it.
She’s here.
I see her yellow coat first.
She was right. The bench is out of view, surrounded by a load of overgrown weeds. If her coat wasn’t so fucking bright, I’d not’ve spotted her. She has her hood up, hands in her pockets like she’s hiding, but she’s flashing like the sun.
She’s well fucking odd.
I move until I’m in her eyeline. She sees me and waves, like she can’t quite help herself. Then she looks left and right, checking, like she overdid it, which she did, cos she’s the least subtle person I’ve ever met.
I cross the mown grass towards her and push my way through the weeds. ‘You all right, Mandy?’ I ask. ‘You look a bit mental.’
‘Hi, Leo,’ she says, all quiet. Her eyes are red. I reckon she smokes pot, you know. Loads of these bored rich types do.
‘Sorry,’ I say, sitting on the wet bench, ‘for yesterday.’ My joggers are fucked from the bin juice. Maybe she’ll take pity on me and buy me some new ones.
‘Don’t worry.’
‘Was she OK? The woman?’
‘I think she will be fine.’ She doesn’t seem sure.
‘Did the police come? Did you have to talk to them? It’s fine if you did. If you wanna grass me up.’
She turns away from me, looking off into the park. ‘I didn’t speak to them,’ she says, still quiet.
‘They’ll probably find me, then I’ll be out of your hair.
’ Speaking of, it looks a bit dishevelled today, hanging down under her hood.
‘Not got your notepad today?’ I say. ‘Thought you might have brought some extra worksheets for me for being such a twat.’ She doesn’t smile at this.
Still doesn’t look at me. Playing hard to get.
‘You want to get out of this mess, right?’ Her tone is a bit harder. Bit more, I’m in charge. Ha.
‘Of course I fucking do.’
‘Then we need to get into the proper stuff, Leo.’
She sounds like she’s about to cry. ‘Proper stuff?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Like what then?’
‘The stuff you didn’t want to discuss yesterday.’ Now she turns to me. Steady. Calm. ‘I think sometimes it’s hard to face the past. But we have to, to move forward.’
‘Is that on a magnet on your fridge?’
‘No. It’s the only way to get out of this mess.’
All right. Straight in with the dramatics. Maybe she was an actor once. A bad one. No shade. ‘So, what... You wanna know about my childhood?’ She nods. Jesus. Getting stuck right in. ‘Was nothing special.’
‘I’ll need more than that. To help you.’
I can feel the scratch, the itch, starting in my chest already. I need to score soon, and I need something big to sell. ‘I grew up with my mum. Never knew my dad.’
She leans forward a little. Maybe she is wearing a wire. ‘What happened?’
‘I don’t fucking know.’ She shifts on her arse, impatient now. ‘OK. Fine. Fine.’ I exhale. ‘My mum was raped, so I didn’t know my dad. All I remember is being lugged around with her until the services took me off her when I was seven. That good?’
‘Yes,’ she says, real quick. A bit too quick if you ask me.
‘Right.’
‘Well, no – not good, Leo. But, it’s good that you’re sharing. Thank you.’ She squints, thinking. ‘I’m so sorry.’
God, really? ‘What for?’
‘That’s a lot.’
‘Is it? I dunno – how the fuck would I know any different – and I was only a kid so it wasn’t a big—’
‘Slow down,’ she says, putting her hand gently on my arm. ‘Slow down. Take your time. I’m so sorry this happened to you. And your mum. I’m really sorry.’
I shrug. ‘It’s all right.’
‘You mustn’t have felt very safe.’
I shrug again.
She waits, frowning and squinting like she really cares.
I dunno if she wants me to keep going or to stop – I can’t tell – but it’s cold and I’m getting scratchy as fuck and can’t bear the silence.
I decide I’m gonna just keep going. ‘She was called Cherie, my mum. But loads of people called her Cherry, cos Cherie seemed too posh. She also had ginger hair, so it kind of worked. Lots of freckles too. I remember that. I just have memories of her face, in loads of different rooms in different parts of London. The rooms would change but the freckles wouldn’t.
She was well tough, my mum. And not in a wanky emotional way – I saw her beat up a few men.
I must have been six when I saw her knock a man’s teeth out. ’
‘Why did she do that?’
‘Because he was a cunt and was trying to feel her up,’ I say.
‘She had taken me to the job centre with her – he was there in the waiting room. He was stood at first, then I just remember he was sat in the seat next to her and I was on the other side – and he was making her laugh a bit. He kept saying things to me like Hello, fella, very handsome, aren’t you?
Do you take after your dad? And when I said I don’t have one, he smiled.
Had grey teeth. He told my mum he could help her get money – they started whispering and he grabbed her leg.
She then elbowed him right in the face. Blood spurted everywhere.
Security dragged my mum out – the man told them he was assaulted, and she wasn’t allowed back in that job centre.
So every Saturday we had to trek down to one that was miles away, and she couldn’t afford the bus so we walked.
I liked the walks though. Thought it was fun at the time. ’
Mandy waits for a minute, rubbing her hand across her cheek, thinking of the right thing to say. Can we just get this done? ‘She does sound tough.’
‘Yeah, she was. But then things got out of hand. I don’t remember loads of it – might have blocked it out – but they started keeping me in at school.
My mum wouldn’t turn up to pick me up and stuff.
I remember one time she did, we got home and she stuck a needle in her arm.
And there were all these men in the flat.
Men I didn’t know. Their eyes were all fucked and some of them just wandered around naked. ’
‘Christ...’
‘Nah, it wasn’t like that. They didn’t do anything to me. I would just leave and sit in the park, keep going back to check if they’d gone. When they had I’d let myself in. She gave me a key. I was six and she gave me a key. Mad that, innit.’
‘It is a bit.’
‘Then the neighbours must have called the police, cos I didn’t see her after that.
Got told when I was about fifteen by my foster parents that she had died.
They just said it once, in one sentence, and that was it.
They said, Cherry’s gone. There was a funeral but I didn’t go.
I was too busy getting fucked up by that point. ’
‘I see.’ I don’t say anything else now. My fingernails are digging into the bench. The wood is soft. ‘Sorry, Leo. That’s a lot to deal with. No wonder...’ She stops herself.
‘No wonder I’m a fuckhead?’
‘I wasn’t going to say that.’
‘I started drinking first. Loved voddy immediately. Was probably nine when I had my first drink. Would only do it at night at one of my foster placements – the dad was a massive alchy himself, so it was easy to steal. Then tried coke first at about twelve, loved it. Some guy down the road would just give it to me cos he thought it was funny, making me do weird shit like dance and steal the neighbour’s dog.
Took Mandy when I was fourteen at a mate’s party.
Thought it was all right but I was pretty bouncy anyway so it just made me feel up-up.
Think it was the same time I found ket – which was good I suppose, felt more in control which was all right, but I think I was also a bit addicted to the chaos.
And then at sixteen I found meth. And that was it.
The holy fucking grail. Got its claws into me. The parties started.’
‘T-Parties?’
‘Yeah, that’s it. Just a total mess of people fucking and getting high, no one wanting to fall asleep cos they don’t want to wake up and deal with themselves.
So that’s been going on since. I got kicked out of about six schools, went to a PRU, spent some time in a nut-house – can’t remember how long but that’s how I found benzos.
They keep me going, take me off it when I need to come down.
Loved them... But then when I’ve got nothing in me I can’t do it.
Can’t be in reality. Hate it. It’s like my body wants to just move away from it.
And I’m done. I’m fucking so sick of it. ’
She stares at me, eyes wide, all wet with tears.
My phone starts vibrating in my pocket.
‘I’d like to help you, Leo. I really would.’
‘Go on then.’ I feel myself getting tetchy. ‘We gonna go back to yours and do some worksheets or summat? It’s grim out here.’
Whoever this is won’t stop calling. Pissing me off. Probably Mo. Or Tommy asking me if I had a good time.
‘I think maybe we can find another café, if that’s OK? Just for now?’
Fucking hell, really? After all that?
This crazy bitch.
I pull out my phone. Check the screen.
Shit.
Mum
Great fucking timing.
I shove it back into my pocket.
Did she see? Fuck, I hope she didn’t see.
‘Who was that?’ she says.
I stand. ‘I gotta go.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
I take off, round the side of the park, and wait. I wait for her yellow jacket to guide me, at a distance, down the road. I’m hidden behind a car and I watch her take her keys out and go into one of the big houses. Fuck me, it’s massive. She looks back towards me, but she doesn’t notice.
She goes in.
I take out my phone. Search my contacts.
Mo.
I need Mo.
Hi Mo – can I come over?
He replies quickly. Always does.
Steady boy, it’s still early
Yeah well. I need to get out my head
Party? (party-hat emoji) And money?
Yeah
Fine. Yes. Come over. But you’re in trouble
Of course
Of course what?
Of course, sir
That’s correct
You’re in real trouble tonight, Leo
Do you understand?
Yes sir
He’s a fucking lunatic.
But people have said that of me.
You’d better be prepared