the kids when Dot was poorly. (More often, he’d send them down the chippie and they’d eat a nice bit of cod in front of Nationwide — that Sue Lawley and her legs.)
But he’d happily do a bit of hoovering, wash up the breakfast things, have a tidy round, do a bit of dusting, make the bed (he got satisfaction out of making the sheets drum-tight). He’d clean the windows, have a potter round the garden if the weather was nice. Then he’d spend an hour at the allotment and be home in time for tea.
It seemed to him that that whole world, black and white, three channels, Sue Lawley and her legs, a decent shabby bookies, fried egg sandwiches, a pub without horrible fucking music blaring in your ears all day, it was all gone, like men wearing hats.
Bill bets a few quid, watches a few races, doesn’t make a penny but enjoys himself anyway.
Then he goes out. Poor little Paddy’s tied to a lamp post. His little legs are shaking with cold and the terror of abandonment and he’s looking up at Bill with a kind of pleading relief.
Bill feels a bit guilty. He says, ‘Sorry there, boy. Was I gone a long time? Was I?’
He doesn’t care who’s listening. He’s an old bloke with an old dog, fuck them all.
It takes him a long time, but he stoops and lets the dog jump into his arms. Little Paddy cringes into his barrel chest, like he’s trying to push inside Bill.
A Sikh kid, the first softness of dark beard round his chops, eases up to him. ‘You all right, mate?’
When Bill was this kid’s age, he’d never in a million years, a hundred million years, have considered calling an elder ‘mate’. He’d have been clipped round the ear. But the kid doesn’t mean any disrespect, in fact he means the opposite of it. Bill responds by saying, ‘Yes, I’m fine thank you, mate.’
A twelve-year-old and an eighty-five-year-old calling each other mate. There’s got to be some good in that, hasn’t there?
The kid says, ‘Are you sure?’
Bill says, ‘I’m a bit stiff, but I’m all right.’
The kid nods, a bit embarrassed Bill thinks, and walks on.
Bill makes his way home. He’s knackered now and his legs hurt, he needs to pop a couple of pills. But he’s glad he got some fresh air. Paddy’s light as a bird and, cuddled to Bill’s chest, he radiates a kind of desperate satisfaction, a bliss just to be there.
Bill’s nearly home when the two big blokes step out of the alley between the blocks. The big white one, Lee Kidman, in his leather jacket and his dyed hair, the fat Asian-looking one, Barry Tonga, in his baggy shorts and oversized white trainers, a fucking handkerchief or something tied round his head.
The first thing that happens, before Bill can open his mouth is that he pisses himself in fear. He hardly knows it’s happening — there’s a big, warm spread across his pants and down his leg and then straight away it goes cold. It’s probably been more than seventy years since Bill wet himself but he knows the feeling straight away and it makes him want to weep in rage and shame. He cuddles the little dog to his chest because he doesn’t want it to see. He knows how stupid that is, except Paddy’s the last part of Dot that he’s got, she loved the little fucker and the little fucker loves Bill, and he’s a weak little thing really, all skin and bone.
The thugs chest-push Bill into the alley.
‘You silly old cunt,’ says Kidman. He looks like he fancies himself; one of them blokes who thinks he’s God’s gift, but who actually gives women the creeps.
The other bloke, his big moon head on massive shoulders, he’s a mystery. He’s got tattoos all up his arms and down his legs. He’s wearing three-quarter-length shorts. In this weather.
Kidman grabs Bill’s bad wrist and a jolt of agony shoots up his arm. He says, ‘Take his offer. Take his money. Look at you. Pissing yourself. You should be in a home.’
‘You fucking prick,’ says Bill, and is horrified to note that he’s weeping. He doesn’t want to but he can’t help it. And he can’t think of anything to say. He’s lain in bed for hours planning what he’s going to say to these geezers, should they come for him again. He’d rehearsed it again and again, the withering contempt, the dignity he’d stand on. But now all those words are gone and he’s standing there dripping with his own piss and he’s crying; the words are flown straight out of his head. He cuddles the little dog. It cringes there. It shakes and shivers, feeling Bill’s fear.
Kidman shoves Bill into the wall. Bill staggers back. Kidman plucks the skinny dog from Bill’s arms, holds it to his face, makes queer little kissy-kissy noises.
‘Who’s this, then?’ he says in a mincing poof’s register, horrible coming from such a big man. ‘Who’s this liddle thing, this little precious thing, then?’
‘You leave him be,’ says Bill. ‘He’s only a dog.’
Kidman doesn’t address Bill directly. He speaks to the quivery, wet-eyed Paddy, tickles him under the wishbone chin with a great spatulate finger, manicured and pink-nailed.
‘I am going to fuck you up,’ Kidman says to Paddy. ‘I am going to fuck you up, liddle doggie, yes I am.’
‘Don’t,’ says Bill. ‘You leave him alone.’
‘Because your daddy didn’t listen to my daddy,’ says Kidman, ‘no he didn’t. He didn’t, did he? And now I’m going to fuck you up, little doggie. I am going to fuck you up. Say bye bye now. Say bye bye to daddy!’
He raises Paddy’s paw between thumb and forefinger, makes Paddy wave to Bill.
‘You fucking bully,’ says Bill. ‘You horrible fucking bully.’
‘I am,’ says Kidman. ‘I am a horrible bully, aren’t I, liddle doggie? I am a howwible, wowwible, liddle bully.’
He takes Paddy’s neck in one hand, Paddy’s hips in the other, then he twists like he’s wringing out a towel.
Paddy yelps as his spine breaks. He voids his bowels and his bladder. Kidman laughs and skips backwards to avoid it, dropping Paddy to the ground.
Paddy makes a horrible noise of a kind Bill has never heard before. He wouldn’t even know what to call it.
Bill howls. He draws back what used to be a feared fist, a great hammer of a knuckle sandwich, but now it’s freckly and tremulous. He takes a step anyway.
But Tonga waddles in and grabs him in a full nelson. Bill can smell his sweet aftershave.
‘Stop now, Poppy,’ says Tonga, almost kindly. ‘Stop now.’
Bill flails and windmills, he tries to stamp on Tonga’s feet. He howls again.
Kidman looks down at Paddy, then looks at Bill and winks.
‘You fucker,’ says Bill. ‘You mean fucker. You horrible fucker.’
Kidman cackles. Then he draws back his great foot and kicks Paddy fifteen feet down the alley.
Paddy’s still alive when he lands. Bill can tell because his wet eyes are looking at him with adoring incomprehension, as if Bill could stop this happening with just a stern command and a point of the finger. Because Bill is God to little Paddy, his Dot’s Yorkshire terrier.
Kidman saunters down the alley, grinning and self-conscious. He puts his big, handsome, horrible face to Bill’s and says, ‘Where’s your wife buried?’
Bill doesn’t understand.
‘I said, where’s your wife buried?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It is if I want to dig her up and fuck her.’
Bill struggles, but Tonga holds him until all the strength is gone. When Tonga lets go, all Bill can do is sag to the ground, sit with his back to the alley wall, his legs out before him.
Kidman and Tonga watch for a bit without speaking. Kidman is grinning ear to ear. Tonga looks a bit more sombre. But then, he’s got a sombre face.
Then Tonga checks his watch and chin nods. Places to be.
They walk away.
Zoe leaves work the second she can. She takes the glass lift to street level and steps outside, belting her coat.
She walks. She takes a right, then a left. There’s a little road at the bottom, a crooked lane. And that’s where Mark’s car is waiting; a tired-looking Alfa Romeo. Mark is at the wheel. Her heart swells to see him.
She slides in next to him, the smell of old vinyl and leather and roll-ups. The ashtrays overflow with crushed
