Free Mountains of the Moon by I. J. Kay Page B

Remember the witch’s house, every hair stands up. Think about the two boys, playing in the woods, the crossbow versus the gun. I find the jar of coffee at the bottom of the bag. Then loiter by the bins and breathe before going back in.
    Jennifer is immune to the sport, sucking ferociously on a round lollipop. I skirt around the fight action in the lounge and pick her up, take her in the kitchen. She sits on my hip and helps me make coffee.
    “I got sacked last night,” I tell her. “Brian gave me my P45;
troublemaker
was the word he used.”
    Jennifer pulls the lolly out of her mouth. It pops.
    “
Troublemaker.
Uh-huh. It made me laugh.”
    She doesn’t believe me.
    “That wasn’t
trouble
, Brian, I said, it made me laugh so hard. Trouble. Unfair dismissal. Another thirteen-year fucking battle.”
    Jennifer looks worried.
    “It’s OK,” I say. “Between you and me I’ve got some money coming. Eight thousand pounds. Are you having a coffee?”
    “I’m three,” she says.
    “Babes!” Sharon says. “That does it, babes; you’re too rough, you’ve really hurt him this time.”
    “He isn’t hurt, are you, little man? Come on, little man? Gavin? Ouch! You little bastard, you’ll pay for that.”
    We get the coffee made. Jennifer’s hair is palest auburn; I could kiss her silky crown. I’m afraid to kiss her, in case I can’t stop. She is so warm on my hip. I lean on the door frame, watch Heath in the middle of thelounge performing the Seven Swords. He can still lift his foot way up above his head, and hold it there; playing with air, with tall man’s ears, with light bulbs. Memory sees his toes toying with light bulbs at Park Lane. He smashed bulbs all over the house, left us constantly in the dark.
    “Mind the mirror, Gavin!” Sharon says.
    He says he hasn’t trained for years but he’s still deadly. Even his penis goes in like a dagger.
    “You all right?” Heath says. “There was an old lady that swallowed a fly. Hee-ha, catch me if you can, little boy, little boy.”
    Sharon takes a breather.
    “You OK?” she says.
    “Bit tickle stomached.”
    “Hee-ha, little boy, you’ll have to do better than that,” Heath says.
    Gavin, flying through the air, lands a butterfly kick on his jaw. They’re all sweating and panting now, snorting steam.
    “Mind! Gavin! The mirror!” Sharon says.
    “Come on, you lot,” Heath says. “We’d better get going.”
    “I made coffee,” I say.
    “We’d better get going,” Sharon says. “Long drive back to Manchester.”
    Tarka starts barking. Heath puts his jacket on. These days he wears a gold stud in his ear. Memory hears Gwen’s voice, clear as an elocution lesson:
what is there to lose?
I close my eyes, hear the blast, and smell Quentin’s blood, all over my hands, all over my lap.
    “Last one to the truck’s a woozy,” Heath says.
    They go. I sit. I look again at the letter from Mr. Mac. Eight thousand pounds. I look at the gaps in the kitchen; try to imagine a cooker, a fridge. I look in the bedroom; try to see a bed with pillows and quilts. A car door slams. The phone box starts ringing.
    “Sit down,” I say.
    Techno’s music drills through the floor, my bass backbone. I sit and sit. Hear voices through the noise in my head.
    “Kim has been offered witness protection and has declined it. Is that true?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why have you declined the offer of police protection?”
    “I don’t believe the police can or will protect me.”
    “Why should you take all of the blame?”
    “I’ll take the blame for my part.”
    “What was your part?”

    I take Baby Grady to Africa. We has to go the long way around, cross the Mara and over Lowry Lane and down by the ridge and the slope, where the heavy plants go. Can’t do warrior running; Baby Grady is too heavy. Stead he sits on a termite hill and I run circles around him, case lions get him. I give him two sticks and a hollow log cos he bashes good and makes drumming and he don’t stop.