She was fifteen when she started going out with Terry, the boy who fixed the pipes in the house next door to Wilf. Terrible Terry, thick as two short planks. Rawbones, we called him. He was eighteen. He worked with his Uncle Dave all over from Shepherd’s Bush to Notting Hill Gate, plumbing and painting, putting in kitchens, bathrooms, bits of all sorts. He and his uncle drove around in a green van with Rapid Drain Repairs written on the side. Someone had altered the D so that it now read Rapid Brain Repairs. Suddenly Terry was in and out of our place all the time with his gormless hulking presence and big ruddy face. He didn’t talk much at first, but after a while started to regale us with sudden bursts of nervous rambling opinion that veered all over the place and were capable of expressing two opposing views in one sentence. He could bang on about foreigners having it cushy and we’re all mugs one minute, and the next be extolling the virtues of multiculturalism. ‘Shit for brains,’ said Johnny. God knows what she saw in him, we wondered. Maybe it was because he ran around after her like a little dog. ‘I want some chocolate,’ she’d say, and he’d jump up and dash off and be back in ten minutes with a Wispa. ‘Oh ta,’ she’d say and wolf it down.
He was too old for her, Johnny said.
But he was harmless.
‘Yeah, but get this!’ said Lily one day. ‘He’s done a job for that horrible woman. Phoebe Twist.’
‘Phoebe Twist!’ Johnny sitting forward, suddenly wide awake.
Oh, Christ, no, not her again. This woman was the Bad Fairy, the one whose face sours the milk and makes the baby cry.
He’d put in a new kitchen and a shower with his Uncle Dave.
‘She really likes Terry.’
‘Terry?’
‘Yeah. She always asks for him, whenever anything needs doing. Not his uncle, Dave. Only Terry. She’s got a thing for him.’
‘Told you the woman was mad,’ Johnny said.
Johnny talked to him a lot at first, eager for news about the Twist woman’s horrible habits. She had a big running sore on her leg that stank. ‘And she’s really dirty,’ said Lily, ‘isn’t she, Tes? If you open her fridge, it’s bogging.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And she goes on about other people!’
‘She’s dead creepy,’ said Terry. His cheeks were such bright apple red you could almost see the blood running just under the surface. ‘She just goes – brush – brush – brush – all day long.’
‘What’s she brushing?’
‘Clothes. Hair.’
*
I went to see Wilf. I wanted his laid-back perspective. He knew Terry, I figured. He’d done some work on a stone wall in Wilf’s back garden.
Wilf was sitting in front of the telly eating thick beef sausages and baked beans from a plate on his knees. He was a sous chef at a bistro off Queensway now, but at home he lived on kids’ food. The gas fire blasted heat. Kids were racketing about upstairs and Jananda was yelling at them. Wilf thought everything was OK.
‘He’s all right, Terry,’ he said. ‘Anyway, it’s not like she’s marrying him, is it, Lor?’
‘Do you think he’s a bit old for her? Johnny thinks he might be.’
‘Nah. Eighteen? What? That what he is? Fifteen, I’d have said. Know how it is, girls mature quicker than boys. No no, Terry’s just a kid, you don’t have to worry about him.’
‘A kid with a dick,’ I said.
‘Don’t say that, Lor.’ Gently. ‘Doesn’t sound nice.’
‘Well, you know what I mean.’
Wilf put on a considering face. ‘We-e-ell – I might be bothered if he was a different sort of kid but I honestly think he’s young for his age. Nothing’s going on.’
‘You seem very sure.’
‘Oh, I know my Lily,’ he said complacently. ‘Believe me, we talk things through.’
It made me feel awful that she talked so easily to Wilf, because she never talked things through with me. Sex, for example – I tried once, she just said, ‘How dare you, of course I know what I’m doing, what do you think I am, an idiot?’
‘Are you OK, Lor? Things going all right?’
‘Oh yeah. They’re just driving me mad a bit. It has got worse.’
‘Him and her?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t mind if she wants to come here for a few days,’ he said.
I should have minded that. I should have wanted her to stay with me, but a few days’ peace would have been nice. No chance. ‘Are you kidding?’ she said. ‘Spend all my time wiping arses? Oh yeah! Their eyes light up. Oh look, babysitter. Lily, would you just mind watching Biff for a few minutes? I’ve just got to…’
‘She says I always take Johnny’s side,’ I said. ‘He says I always take hers. Sides? Sides? What are they on about? Sometimes I just want to scream at them both.’
‘Never stops, Lor, does it?’
‘No.’
‘Life. Just never
