Free Nico by James Young

me with baby talc, run the tips of her fingers down the warm yielding crack of my chubby behind and cradle my tiny testicles in her cupped hand … “There, my little man,” she’d say, “there …” ’
    Knuckles on wood: Echo peeped through the kitchen curtains. Raincoat. He’d borrowed Demetrius’s Citroën, ostensibly to take his lumbago-ridden grandmother to the physio, actually to make a run to his mate down the Moss.
    â€˜How’s your poor grannie, Raincoat?’ asked Demetrius, dropping his catch as Raincoat threw him the car-keys.
    â€˜Notser clever.’ Raincoat slurred his words, his pupils like pinheads. ‘But she sez t’ tell yer that if there wuz more folk like good ol’ Dr Demetrius, wha’ a be’er world it’d be, feralluvus.’
    Dead leaves still fluttered across the path as we carried Nico’s things up to her new flat. It was the ground floor of one of those great Victorian Gothic villas built originally for Greek shipowners in the days when the Manchester Ship Canal was the main artery of commerce for King Cotton. Since the turn of the century they’d been a haven for Hasidic Jews fleeing the eternal pogrom of central Europe.
    â€˜Don’t they look weeeerd?’ said Nico, pointing to a huddle of bearded men and side-curled youths with prayer-white faces.
    â€˜I like the way they look,’ I said, ‘it’s romantic.’
    She examined them more closely, the eighteenth-century dress, frock-coats, gaiters, black hats. ‘They don’t wash, you know.’
    â€˜Neither do you,’ I replied.
    â€˜I do …’ she protested. ‘I took a bath that time in Milan.’
    Echo and Raincoat pulled up beside us. Demetrius remained in the car, listening to Country heartaches and feeding on some hot-potato latkes from the kosher kaff.
    There was a figure, waving, at the bay window that overlooked the untended garden. Nico suddenly seemed overjoyed and rushed on ahead. Raincoat cast a glance up at the house. ‘I see we’ave Le Fils [pronounced Fills] with us, Le Vray Beau Jolly Newvo’imself … Le Kid.’
    â€˜Her kid?’ I’d forgotten about the son.
    â€˜Yeh,’ said Echo, ‘ ’er very own creation. Yer gonna love ’im.’
    â€˜What’s he called?’ I asked.
    â€˜Ari.’
    â€˜Yeh.’ Raincoat glowered up at the window. ‘An’ we’re jus’ wild about Ari.’
    Ari, Le Kid, was about nineteen, the super-beautiful progeny of a union between the North and the Mediterranean, Nico and Alain Delon. Nico had a brief fling with Delon in her model days. Now Delon absolutely didn’t want to know. Le Kid had turned up at the matinée idol’s Paris apartment, only to be turned away by the maid. Even though Delon’s mother took him in, Le Kid did not exist. Neither did he exist properly for Nico. While he was still in the womb she’d dropped acid along with the usual family favourites, and when he’d cried she found the most expedient solution was to lock him in a cupboard. It must have pained Ari to see pictures of that other Delon Jr, waterskiing with Princess Pixie of Monaco. Famous folk usually buy off responsibility with money – Nico hadn’t got it, Delon wouldn’t give it. Le Kid opened the door.
    â€˜ Maman. Maman. ’ They embraced. He looked over her shoulder at us. His nose twitched in that Frenchified manner, like there was a bad odeur . Who were we? More shit she’d picked up on her boots. He turned away from us.
    â€˜ Maman … suis-moi, j’ai un petit cadeau pour toi .’
    We followed them down the hall, me walking backwards, clattering the harmonium against the walls.
    â€˜ Ferme les yeux ,’ he said to her. I don’t know why, but I did too. ‘ Bien … ouvre !’ He held out a shining new hypodermic, loaded and ready to go. Nico gasped