Free Blood Relatives by Stevan Alcock Page B

uneasily as these middle-aged blokes ran about and hid in t’ undergrowth. It wor more hide and seek than cowboys and injuns. No one went ‘Bang bang’ or hollered or whooped or lay on t’ grass pretending to be dead ’til they got bored and got up again.
    For a brief while this wor brill. I just had to keep an eye out. When I wor a nipper I’d always played cowboys and injuns wi’ my best friend, Mickey. Mickey always played the cowboy and I wor t’ injun. Except one time Mickey undressed me down to my undies (injuns always wore very little) and tied me to a tree (injuns always got tied up). Then he went home and forgot about me. Not long after, these two older boys came along on their bikes. They cycled round and round the tree, laughing, but they refused to untie me. Then they chucked their bikes aside, took out their willies and pissed all over me.
    I looked about for my grown-up cowboys and injuns.
    I formed my fingers into a pistol and sighted one of ’em. Pow! Pow! (Silencer on.) The man’s face crumpled and he started to blubber.
    I counted the men. One, two, three. Four. Only four. Where wor t’other one?
    I spied him nipping into a greenhouse. I followed him in, creeping around t’ ragged tomato plants and whatnot. He wor ducked behind t’ seed tables, sniggering. He wouldn’t come out, but just kept running about t’ friggin’ greenhouse and giggling. For a baldy wi’ a paunch he wor fair nimble.
    I’d soon had enough. I strode out of t’ greenhouse, turned the rusting key, locking the blighter in, and looked about for t’ others.
    I shouted out, ‘Hey, cowboys! Injuns!’ cos I worn’t told their names.
    Silence. No one popped up from behind a tree or stone wall or any of t’ bushes.
    Behind me, the bugger in t’ greenhouse wor freaking out, tugging at the door and bawling. I quickened my step, heading out, telling the man on t’ gate I wor just nipping out for a paper.
    A month later I wor standing in Craner’s office, wishing I wor still in t’ loony bin.
    On t’ Wednesday following Tina Atkinson’s murder, Gran toddled over, as she often did, for a meal. She arrived early evening and sat at the kitchen table, fingers interlocked, pride dented, like she wor in a doctor’s waiting room.
    Sis flounced into t’ kitchen and greeted Gran breezily. She wor chewing chuddy gum. She only chewed chuddy when she’d been smoking, so God friggin’ knows why she bothered trying to mask it. Mother frowned. Gran rooted out a bag of mints from her handbag. She handed Mandy the bag and said, ‘Now these are to share,’ like it wor a reward for being brave cos your pet hamster just pegged it.
    ‘Oooh, thank you Gran,’ sis had simpered. She spat out her chuddy into her hand and stuck it to t’ underside of t’ table. I puckered my face in disgust, so she stuck her tongue out at me, popped a mint onto t’ end, closed her mouth and began sucking noisily.
    ‘Don’t I get one?’
    She pushed the bag toward me.
    ‘No ta. I just wanted to see if you would.’
    Gran rose from t’ table, supporting hersen by t’ edge, sloughed over to t’ sink and began rinsing a plate under t’ cold tap. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I wor once stuck in a lift.’
    Mother wor stirring some cheese sauce to pour over macaroni. I saw her neck vein bloop. ‘Yes,’ she sighed heavily. ‘I know.’
    We all knew. Barely had Gran doled out the words ‘stuck in a lift’ before we’d collectively arrived at the end of t’ tale. Stuck in a lift. Stuck on repeat. Made me appreciate Mrs Husk the more. Mrs Husk never said owt twice, never mind fifty trillion friggin’ times.
    I mouthed at sis, ‘Two hours.’ Sis sniggered. Mother replied dutifully, taking the rinsed plate from Gran, ‘When you were visiting Florrie. Quarry Hill flats.’
    ‘I wor stuck in that lift for a good two hour. How it stank. People had peed in it. I never thought I’d get out.’
    Mother said, ‘Like being entombed in a metal box.’ I