She did so. Emmie waited till she finished and said, “I haven’t got a pencil.”
Al sighed. “You go and get one.”
She heard the receiver drop. A buzzing filled the line, like flies around a dustbin. When Emmie returned she said, “Found up my eyebrow pencil. That was a good idea, wasn’t it?”
She repeated the number.
Emmie said, “Wagstaffe always had a pen. You could rely on him for that.”
“Have you got it now?”
“No.”
“Why not, Mum?”
“I haven’t got a paper.”
“Haven’t you got anything you can write on? You must have a writing pad.”
“Oh, la-di-dah.”
“Go and get a bit of toilet paper.”
“All right. Don’t get shirty.”
She could hear Emmie singing, as she moved away; “I wish I was in Dixie, hurrah, hurrah …”; then, again, the buzzing occupied the line. She thought, the men came into the bedroom and looked down at me as I lay in my little bed. They took me out of the house by night, into the thick belt of birch trees and dead bracken beyond the pony field. There on the ground they operated on me, took out my will and put in their own.
“Hello?” Emmie said. “That you, Al? I got the toilet paper, you can tell me again now. Oops, hang on, me pencil’s rolled off.” There was a grunt of effort.
Alison was almost sure she could hear a man, complaining in the background.
“Okay, I got it now. Fire away.”
Once again, she gave her number. She felt exhausted.
“Now tell me again,” her mother said. “What have I got to ring you, when and if what?”
“If any of them come around. Any of that old crowd.”
“Oh yes. Aitkenside. Well, I should hear ’is lorry, I should think.”
“That’s right. But he might not be driving a lorry anymore.”
“What’s happened to it?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying, he might not. He might just turn up. If anybody comes knocking at your window—”
“Bob Fox, he always used to knock on the window. Come around the back and knock on the window and give me a fright.” Emmie laughed. “‘Caught you that time,’ he’d say.”
“Yes, so … you ring me.”
“Keith Capstick,” her mother said. “He were another. Keef, you used to call him, couldn’t say your tee-haitches; you was a stupid little bugger. Keef Catsick. ’Course, you didn’t know any better. Oh, it used to make him mad, though. Keef Catsick. He caught you many a slap.”
“Did he?”
“He used to say, I’ll skin the hide off her, I’ll knock her to Kingdom Come. ’Course, if it weren’t for Keith, that dog would have had your throat out. What did you want to let it in for?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember now. I expect I wanted a pet.”
“Pet? They weren’t pets. Fighting dogs, them. Not as if you hadn’t been told. Not as if you hadn’t been told a dozen times and Keith give you the back of his hand to drive it through your skull. Not that he did succeeded, did he? What did you want to open the back door for? You was all over Keith after that, after he pulled the dog off you. Couldn’t make enough of him. Used to call him Daddy.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“He said, that’s worse than Catsick, her calling me Daddy, I don’t want to be her daddy, I’ll throttle the little fucker if she don’t leave off.” Emmie chuckled. “He would too. He’d throttled a few, in his time, Keith.”
There was a pause.
Al put her hand to her throat. She spoke. “I see. And you’d like to meet up with Keith again, would you? A laugh, was he? Always got a wodge in his wallet?”
“No, that was Aitkenside,” her mother said. “God help you, girl, you never could keep anything straight in your head. I don’t know if I’d recognize Keith if he come round here today. Not after that fight he had, he was that mangled I don’t know if I’d know him. I remember that fight, I see it as if it were yesterday—old Mac with the patch over his eye socket, and me embarrassed, not knowing where to look. We didn’t know where to put our loyalties, you see? Not in this house we didn’t. Morris said he was putting a fiver on Keith; he said I’ll back a man with no balls over a man with one eye. He had a fiver on Keith, oh, he was mad with him, the way he went down. I remember they said, after, that MacArthur must have had a blade in his fist. Still, you’d know, wouldn’t you? You’d know about blades, you little madam. By Christ, did I wallop you, when I found you with those whatsits in your pocket.”
Al said, “I want to stop you, Mum.”
“What?”
