Arr, innit sweet? Don it need my elp? Well, e'll ave ta get better now, I don think I got the eart to eat im, now e's tryin to talk. So I lit a candle fer im, so e can peep out if e wants, and I sang im one a they uman lullabies t'make it feel at ome…
'Liddle man, ou've ad a busy day…'
An would yer b'live it, when I got them bandages off im, it worked? When I saw wot they was like, I thought I'd oinky-ave t'do it all agin, but no. Jaw an ands, eatin and oldin. E ain't got many teeth but he eats enuff. Don't get fat though. Groink. Jesus! Ugly, though! Face like a dog's arse, e's got.
'Peter said, 'My dear I'll pass,
This one's face is like my arse.'
An is ands, oinky-oinky! E's got ands like a bowl o bones. Knows how to grab old of is dinna, though. And now ere e is, alive-o. An I think – what next?
Well, I don't know what t'oinky-do. E's not gonna last long round ere! I only got two rooms, see, n e takes up the ole ofa my cellar, lying there eating n eating. Where'm I getting grub enuff fer im? S'all I can do t'feed mesel an ave a bit left over fer poor ol mad Piggy. An then, course, you can't stop is whiff getting out through the door o'nights, oink-oink, when the heat-stench down there rises up. Say this – they stinks, umans. Uman ordure, the worst of the lot. Makes I gag, makes I hold my nose when I cleans him out. Keep a uman up in the bright air, I oinky-oughta, but a course Piggy gets a whiff. Groink. Snakey gets a whiff. I had Badger George sniffing round my ouse t'other day.
E goes, 'Smells a makin my turn go pop, Mels!' – all grinning and staring at the door like it's is larder.
N I goes, 'You get your snout oinky-outta my parlour, or I'll tell on yer, I'll tell Piggy I will!'
N e goes, 'No need, Mels, no need…' all backing off like e don want no fuss. 'Bit fer Piggy, is it, then, eh?' e goes. N I goes, 'Yers, you keeps yer oinky-nose oinky-outta my parlour!' But e'll be down ere one time, when I's out. An Piggy will. Look, look what e did t'my door, t'other day -almost ate the frame off. When I got back t'whole thing was arf chewed up. I goes, 'What you up to, Piggy?'
N e goes, 'Where's my dinna?' Oinky oinky.
I jus says,
'Greedy Alice ad a babe, Greedy Alice loved it,
Greedy Alice made a pie an stuffed er baby in it!'
That rhyme comes from old Alice who used to live round ere and never could keep er kids fer the hunger gnawing at er guts. Groink. She must've ate a classful fore they eard about it from further out n the doggymen comes and chops er up. Oh, poor ol Alice – she'd never ave done it if she ad enuff to eat!
So ere e is – too ugly t'sell, ands like pliers. An the food e wants! Bit of old bread n e goes, 'What's this shit, I can't eat this shit!' Bloody old kings n queens, thinks the world's made outta cheese pie!
Now, see if I ad any sense I'd chop im oinky-up and throw open me doors and ave a party. Groink. But I can't do it. You gets t'know em, see. You gets t' like em. At's ow it is… oink-oink-oink, I could never eat anythin that minks. Now I ad an uncle, e used to say, no eating anything that feels, either, but me, I'm not that fussy. You can't be too fussy in these parts! No oinky-ow. But Siggy, my little man, my uman… thing is, e thinks too much fer is own good, and too much fer mine, and I jus could'n get me chops round him, not now, now I sung him t'sleep and made im better again.
This uman, my Siggy, I'd ave t'say, I'm a fool, cause e's a crap sorta bloke. E's like a load of em, e thinks e's number one. Groink. Oink. 'Where's my dinna?' e goes. An I goes, 'Ere, where's mine, then?' An he looks at me like I don know what unger is, like e's the only ungry bloke in the wide world. E goes, 'Yeah, you've been stuffing your face again, Mels, aven't you?'
N I goes, 'Don be such a stoopid monkey, man!' Oh, but e knows best. E sees everything that appens from down in is little hole, t'listen to im you'd think e did!
This is no-one's land! What's e want, e wants me to cut me leg off to keep im in sausages? I does my best! E goes, 'I ain't goin to get better like this, Melanie, I ain't gonna get up an rob things for you like this, Mels.'
See? Full o promises, e is. I s'pose you could say I'm a sucker fer promises, but I always thinks, well, if I go oinky-outta my way fer im, e'll go oinky-outta is way fer me, when e can. Groink. At'sa way the wort goes round – when it's working, that is. Groink. E says, once e's better e'll go into town and rob and steal and keep us both like little lords. I ses,
'Mrs Would an Mrs Could
Met Mrs Might an Mrs Should.
They all went up a Leafy Lane
And then was never seen again.'
Yeah, still – why not? E were a ganglord, e knows ow, I reckon. I got a liddle gun popped away, ad it fer years, showed it im the other day and e grins and e goes, 'No, I can see it don fire, Mels, but that don matter. I can scare em to death!'
An I thinks, 'If yer could see yer face, pally, you'd know why. Jus my luck! Too ugly t'sell, too ungry t'work.
Well, I jus needs to get im better so e can go out and do some robbing. I suppose it's me best chance. If Piggy don get im first. Groink. If George or Amanda don get im first. Groink.
39
Melanie had many hiding places – empty drains and underground pipework, fallen-down houses and collapsed offices – which she used to hide her finds away on her rounds, until she could pick them up later on. The place she chose for Siggy was an old school, three or four kilometres out from the Wall. It was a two-storey building made of concrete beams and blue panels with a great many windows, all fallen down now, of course. There was ironwork and concrete here and there still in one piece, but all the panels had been taken off and used over the years as shelters, or slides for the halfmen children, among other things. The tiled floors were still intact, all slimy from the rain that poured or dripped down through the collapsed roof. Everything was covered in rubble and a crunchy gravel made of crushed glass.
The one part of the school that was still largely intact was also the best hidden; the old boiler room. It was blockwork, tucked away out of sight underground. Best of all, the door was made of steel and was still in place. Melanie had a padlock for it to keep Siggy in and anyone else out, but who would think of looking for a wounded ganglord in an old school? It was isolated, too. Houses were still up around the overgrown playing fields, all uninhabited. In a block of fallen flats lived a tribe of cats who might have had a dash of human in them, but that was the closest it got to neighbours.
The old woman moved him a month after she'd picked him up. It was a breezy dark night, when the man's strong smell would hopefully get blown away. She half coaxed, half bullied him up the stairs from the stinking basement and into an old supermarket trolley. Covered in a heap of rags, Siggy lay with his head back, trying not to groan as he was jolted and banged over the rough ground. His hands were still encased in great rolls of bandage, and he had no idea how ghastly he looked, but by this time the biggest danger to his life wasn't from his wounds. It was from starvation.
Conor had already turned his attention to the halfman lands. Trade was in ruins, transport hopeless. It was autumn, there ought to have been plenty of wheat and fruit harvested in the past months. But the food silos had been destroyed, the fields fired. Massacres were commonplace. It was Conor's aim to commit genocide on the halfmen, before he moved on to the world beyond. Times were hard, and they were going to get harder. It was all Melanie could do to feed herself, let alone Siggy. With a war on, there was no chance of selling him and she was too fond of him to eat him, but Melanie never considered for a second abandoning her patient.
But Siggy, still full of the old myths and stories about the halfmen, was convinced that she was fattening him up to eat Half his waking hours were spent planning an escape, the others on promising her huge rewards once he got better. He had no idea at all of the realities of Melanie's life. He had never had any choice but to live in palaces and so he believed that she lived in filth because she preferred it that way. He thought she talked about food all the time because she was greedy. It never occurred to him that she was the same as him – she thought about food because she was hungry. It was as simple as that.
This was how the journey went, with Melanie gasping for breath behind the trolley handle, and Siggy groaning
