Chapter Twenty Zig
Six years ago
After he’d said his final goodbye to Si, Zig walked away from the Dog and Duck with a spring in his step and didn’t look back. Not a care in the world. The fucking world, okay? He didn’t need a na?ve fucking farmboy from Mummerset ooh-aaring in his ear every time he fancied a shag.
Who the hell did Si think he was, acting like he was better than Zig and his dad just cos they had to grift to make a living? Making such a big thing out of a little scam that the insurance was gonna cover anyhow? Didn’t he know everyone in this fucking country was on the make?
Except Si . . . Zig shook his head. Fucking Trent. How many building sites were there in south London? Why the hell couldn’t him and Dad have picked one of the other ones?
Cos then they couldn’t have used Si to get the gen on the site, could they? Idiot.
No wonder they hadn’t hauled Zig in on the job. He should have known.
Some arse had left their wheelie bin out, perfectly placed for Zig to catch his foot on the wheel and almost face-plant on the pavement.
Zig gave the bin a vicious shove, snarling a smile when it tipped over into the hedge, all the rubbish inside falling out onto their stupid fucking metre square of lawn with a rosebush in the middle.
A nappy sack caught on the thorns and ripped, displaying its stinking contents. Fucking good.
Then he had to leg it when a six-foot DILF came slamming out of the house yelling about what he was gonna do to Zig when he caught him.
Zig lost the git by ducking down an alley, then leaping over a fence. He doubled over, wheezing, his hands on his knees in some other sod’s garden. Christ, he needed to stop smoking.
Or not. What the fuck did it matter anyhow?
When he finally made it home, Dad was in the living room, watching sport on the telly, a beer in hand.
“Did you put him up to it?” Zig demanded.
Dad put his beer down. “Who’s crawled up your arse?” Then he laughed harshly. “Thought you liked that kind of thing.”
“Trent. Pumping Si for info so you and him could do over his boss’s building site.”
“Si. That your little boyfriend, is it? So what if he did?”
“For fuck’s sake, Dad. You don’t shaft your mates!”
Dad stood up slowly, and Zig took a step back. “He’s no mate of mine. Some rich bastard raking it in from other men doing all the work? Or do you mean the little tosser you’ve been panting after? I wouldn’t let him in the house.”
“Si’s a good man!”
Dad sneered. “Too good for you, then.”
It hit Zig like a slap to the face, and he reeled from it.
Dad gave a satisfied grunt. “If I’ve got to have a fairy for a son, I might as well get something out of it, eh?” He sat back down and picked up his beer.
Zig blinked at him a couple of times, his throat tight. Then he hurled himself up the stairs and into his room, slamming the door behind him. He threw himself down on his bed. The sheets were crumpled and needed a wash.
Zig buried his face in the pillow. Was that all he was worth to his dad? A way of making money?
Well, duh. You’ve always known the bastard don’t give two shits about you, you stupid wanker. It’s not as if he thinks you’re a real man. Not like Trent.
Dad and Trent. Working together, like always. And now they’d lost him Si.
Except they hadn’t, had they? Zig had done that himself, spouting off all that crap Dad always came out with. Justifying himself. Making out like he was so clever, beating the system. Jesus, he’d even defended Trent for shafting both of them.
Sod it. He’d always known it wasn’t gonna last, him and Si. It wasn’t like they had much in common. Si had his nice home in the country to go back to, with his nice mum and dad, probably a granny or three somewhere who knitted him sweaters at Christmas . . .
Fuck.
Zig got out his lighter and a ciggie, but his hands were shaking and everything was all blurred. He threw them across the room instead.