Everyone thought about burning their own stuff.
“Why keep anything at all?” Fran asked her husband. “Half the stuff we’ve got is knacked and unmendable. We should do what Nesta’s done.”
“She’ll get into bother off the council, having a fire so near the houses,” Frank said. “You won’t get a chance to burn your stuff here.”
“I wonder if she goes out and buys all new things.” Fran had started to think about getting shot of the accumulated junk of her cupboards and drawers. After four kids, the house was chockablock. Imagine having her kitchen drawers to herself again! Neatness and room.
“But it’s like she can’t live with her past, her old things,” said Penny to Mark. “She’s deluding herself.”
“It’s worth a try,” he said. “Are your eyeballs itching with the heat? Mine are.”
“I love going through all my mam’s old things,” Penny said. “Records and clothes and that. Nesta won’t have anything to pass on to her kids.”
Nesta’s kids looked awed by the flames.
Elsie was saying to Tom, “Look at that filthy old mattress they’ve got. That should have been burned years ago.”
“Leave them be, Elsie,” he said and she thought she could hear in his tone that old authority.
Then the lads from over the street were there, their shapes hazy and threatening through the flames.
“Our Craig,” said Elsie. “He’s back with that lot.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Steve was shouting across the small crowd. “Are you burning witches?” His mates all laughed, Craig with them. “You can take your pick out of all the bloody witches round here.”
“Just ignore them,” came Nesta’s voice. She lit a sparkler for Vicki, her eldest.
“Is this your stuff?” Steve asked Nesta, coming round to see her.
Nesta gazed up at him. She looked stupid and defiant and Fran thought, Good luck to you, pet.
“Is that stuff from inside your house?” Steve laughed. “You must come from a fucking pigsty.”
“Eh, look,” said Frank, weighing in. “Just you lot leave them alone.” He saw then that all of the gang from the Forsythe house were out, gathered around the fire.
“We should burn some of these witches,” one of Steve’s mates suggested.
“I’m going to talk to them,” Tom told Elsie.
“Tom, you’re only just back on your feet,” Elsie began. Her throat was dry with soot and gin.
“You boys think you can carry on how you want,” Tom said.
“Oh, it’s him,” said Steve. “What do you want?”
“I want you all to go home.” Tom was standing his ground. “I want you to stop hanging around like you do, scaring people. I want things to change around here.”
“Things aren’t gunna change,” said Steve.
Craig was there. Elsie stared at him. She willed him to talk, to stand up for her Tom.
“You’re just boys. You need something better than scaring old women.”
“Hark at fucking Gandhi.”
“You used to be at my Rainbow Club, Steve. Years ago. I remember. What about God?”
Steve laughed, and his mates followed. “We only went to your crappy club for the cheap sweets and that. You know that.”
“Something rotten has happened to you all.”
“Maybe.” Steve grinned, tossing his hair. “But you’re the one who’s crackers.”
Tom’s face went dark. “What?”
“I said, you’re the fucking loony.”
Tom flew at him with both hands outstretched. He caught Steve off guard and knocked him down in the dirt, yards from the fire. He seemed to claw at his throat. Everyone pulled back and Steve was howling to get him off him. Craig was first onto them. He grasped his stepfather by the armpits and wrenched him up off the boy.
Before anyone could do anything else, Steve was kicking Tom in the guts while Craig held him hard. He got a few good kicks in before Mark, Tony and Frank could intervene. They got Tom away and Steve fell back on the grass, feeling his throat, which was ripped and bleeding. Over these few months Tom had let his fingernails grow.
Mark shouted at the lads, “Why don’t you lot fuck off home? You’ve done it again, you little bastards! You’ve done it all again.”
Elsie stood in shock beside Tom, who lay curled, clutching his stomach. She found her voice and yelled at Craig, over the noise of the fire and everyone else. “Tom is like your dad! He’s almost your dad! And look what you do!”
Craig was as angry and shocked as she was. He was turning, with the other lads, to go back to the Forsyths’ house. “He was never my dad. Not that old cunt. He’s poisoned you, Mam, and you can’t see.”
Elsie watched them go.
Fran took her arms. “Elsie...do you want the coppers?”
“No,” she said. “No coppers.” She said it like ticking the ‘no publicity’ box on a pools coupon.
TWENTY
I know it’s probably impossible, the whole time I’m doing it. But I’ve got to try. Can’t have him like this. How can I keep him still, though? How on earth do you make a baby lie still? So I put off doing it because it’s too difficult.
Until he wakes me in the middle of one particular night. It’s the fourth time that night he’s cried for me and I’m dead on my feet. He needs feeding. My feet thud heavily on worn carpets. I’m almost back asleep again when I go to the kitchen and feel about in the fridge. There’s one sliver of chicken breast left. It’s pale and wet, like an eyeless fish. I rock on my heels, almost passing out in the kitchen. I’m not used to living here yet, up in this
