grimms36

Angela nips across the landing and rattles the letterbox. Dermot answers, swinging the door wide in welcome. He’s wearing his old work coat and work boots. ‘Where you goin’? Angela asks.

He laughs, ‘Just out to see a man about a dog.’

She scrunches her face. ‘Up,’ she commands. And Dermot leans down, with a grunt he scoops her up and holds her in his arms. She glances over his head at Tony in the lobby, watching and waiting.

‘Kiss,’ dabbing her cheek with pudgy fingers she marks where she wants pecked with Dermot’s lips.

With scratchy unshaved chin and mouth he blows a raspberry on the soft skin of her face, and holds her tight to his chest, before spinning, and putting her down inside the hall. He pats the halo of blonde hair that has quickly grown lush covering her ears and neck, and a new blue anorak and black shoes with silver buckles make her seem more girlish and less scrawny.  She turns, idly sucking her thumb, watching him picking his step carefully on the way down the stairs, before she flings the door shut.

‘This place is mingin’,’ she cries, sour faced and impish nosed, following Tony through to the living room.

‘That’s him,’ Tony says, refereeing between the stink and his da, ‘he said it’s his stomach, but I cannae smell anythin’ now.’ Tony picks up the poker and digs it into the fireplace, but with little effect on ash and clunkers. Not that it matters, the weather has picked up and it’s almost warm.   

‘How come you’ve no’ got the telly on?’ Angela asks.

‘No workin’.’ Tony balances the poker almost horizontal and lets it fall, with a clatter and a puff on ash, on the ceramic tiles.

‘But we’ll miss the Flashing Blade,’ she says, pouting. ‘And Champion the Wonder Horse.’

‘Well, there’s nothin’ we can dae about that.’ Tony mimics his da’s dour delivery and explanation, but jinks in front of her, plugging the telly into the socket. Pressing the button on the telly, he stands back frowning the dull screen into warming up quicker and into life, tapping his right foot, an expectant gleam in his eyes.

‘It’s workin’,’ she shouts, pointing. ‘There’s the dot.’

‘Aye, but you cannae get any channels.’ He twiddles the knob through the stations hoping a humming sound can pick up stations. A picture appears and disappears into the ether like a whisper of daydream. He bangs the dust on top of cabinet and says with parental authority, what his da said, ‘it’s probably the valve’.

‘Let me dae it.’ Angela takes her turn hitting the top of the telly with the palm of her hand, while instructing Tony to whir through the channels. ‘No’ that’s rubbish, it doesnae work,’ she says, losing interest.  ‘Whit will we dae now?’

‘You need to turn it aff at the wall or you could start a fire.’ Tony crouches and pulls the plug. He yawns. ‘We could go down for Pizza Face and see whit he wants to dae, maybe go up the park, feed the ducks.’

‘Look, I’ve got fifty pence.’ Her face lights into a smile and she holds the coin out in the palm of her right hand.

‘Where’d you get that?’

‘Pocket money.’

‘I didnae know you got pocket money.’

‘Neither did I.’ Her fingers close over the coin and she shoves it back in her anorak pocket, with a smirk on her face, satisfied that he believes her. ‘We could get sweets and ginger,’ her excitement infectious.

‘Wait ‘til’ I get my jacket,’ Tony says.  

They clatter downstairs as fast as their legs carry them, out into the pavement and into Maise’s. The bell dings in the shop. They stand at the back of queue of one person, but it seems bigger, she seems bigger, an old buddie, long and short as a table in a dusty brown coat, wearing a pill-box hat. She leans over the counter yakking to Maisie. Tony snatches a Dandy and Beano from the counter, Maisie’s eyes gleaning the movement and tabbing up the transaction. When the old woman finally leaves Maisie is a step ahead, whipping out the half-penny and penny tray from beneath the counter for them to feast their eyes on.

Tony plonks his comics on the counter and picks at the tray, Sherbert dabs, flying saucers, Highland Toffee, MB bar and a giant gobstopper.

‘Whit does yer wee sister want?’ asks Maisie ducking down to see her better.

‘I’m no’ his wee sister.’ Angela points at the jars of Kola Kubes. ‘I want them and them.’ She points at Soor Plooms. ‘And them and them.’ She’s not sure what they’re called but Maisie knows.

‘Does yer wee sister want quarter bags,’ Maisie says to Tony, reaching up and lifting down the jar nearest her, opening the lid and tipping the glass and sweets falling into the scales, lifting one, then another Kola Kube, checking the weight,  and putting them back in the jar.  She nestles the paper bag beside Tony’s sweets and comics. His purchases spread out, taking counter space, and balance unevenly on newspapers and the headlines of the day. ‘Are you sure yer wee sister has got enough money?’ she asks, giving him a sly look, before reaching up for the other jars.

Angela digs into her pocket and hands Tony the fifty pence and he sticks it down on the counter. She whispers to Tony, suddenly shy, a list.  ‘And I want a Whopper and Toffos and a Frys Cream and a Caramac and a Jubilee and a packet of chewing gum and a bottle of limeade.’ Then she reconsiders. ‘And a Jubilee and Blackjacks,’ she adds.

‘Aw, that’s all right then, dear.’ Maisie gets back to weighing and measuring.

Angela slips the change into her anorak pocket and crams bags of sweeties in and also fills her matching pocket.  Tony carries the ginger bottle and the comics and they take their haul back upstairs to his house to picnic on.

When it gets dark outside and their jaws hurt from chewing, they sit sleepy eyed, twinned together, in the chair beside the unlit fire. Tony flicks through the pages of the comics, but they’ve already read them twice, until Desperate Dan and cowpie with horns sticking out of the pastry isn’t funny. ‘I need to go to the lavvy,’ he says, I’m burstin’, untangling his legs from hers, digging his elbows into his side of the chair and standing up, his legs are fizzy with pins and needles from sitting so long.

Angela jumps out of the chair. ‘I need to go to.’

‘Well, you’ll need to wait.’

‘No, I’ll go with you!’ She grabs the nylon above the cuff of his shirt, letting go when the expression on his face darkens, her hand dropping to her side.

‘Wee boys and wee girls can’t go to the toilet together,’ he explains.

‘How no’?’

‘Because they cannae.’

‘Is it because of sex and fucking and sucking?’ She looks up at him, jaw set, eyes red rimmed, holding his gaze,  blue retinas mosaics of the prettiest stone.

Tony fidgets away from her, toward the door. ‘They just cannae. It’s no’ allowed.’ He is less vague about what to do next. ‘You can go first and I’ll wait here,’ he offers.

‘No,’ she shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to.’

‘How no’?’

‘Because of the monsters.’

‘Monsters?’  

‘Aye, in case the monsters get me.’ Her steps are uncertain as a pigeons. She reaches up and takes his hand. ‘You check the toilet and wait outside when I’m in.’

‘Aye,’ he says. ‘Aye, I’ll dae that, but you’ll need to hurry up. I cannae wait.’

Tony darts into the kitchen, leaving her standing, and come out armed with a shiny toilet roll. Down the stairs they run her hand tucked into his He pushes open the door and leans in. The toilet bowl is clean and the place smell of bleach.

‘Naebody in,’ he pronounces. ‘All clear,’

‘You’ll wait here?’ she asks.

‘Aye.’

‘You won’t go away and leave me?’

‘Nah,’ he says. ‘For god’s sake hurry up.’

He stands outside the rickety door, waiting. When he hears the toilet flushing and the door opens, he bangs past her, pulling his zip down and hosing the pan, before she gets a chance to properly shut the door.

‘That was close,’ he laughs, smiling broadly, and then biting down on his lips.

Jaz stinking of booze, his back leaning against the wall, wearing a shiny black leather coat, cinched tight at the waist, has his hand on her shoulder. ‘You,’ he says to Angela, whose face is preternaturally pale, a confection of shock and grief. ‘Get up the stairs and into your bed. Whit did I tell you about playing with that Fenian bastard?’

‘And you,’ Jaz calls to Tony, holding a finger up and out like a gun and pointing at him and sniggering. ‘You,’ and he shakes his head, shaking his head from side to side, letting no one else in on his joke.

He slaps Angela on the back of the head. ‘Move,’ he says, shoving her shoulder forward, her feet buckling on the first step.

Tony backs up and shuts the door of the toilet, putting the latch on. He peeks through a gap in the slats and doesn’t come out for a few minutes, until after he hears his neighbour’s door shutting.