Easy Meat

Twenty-three

Norma had tried not to notice the smell on Sheena’s breath when her daughter came in; not tobacco, not quite gin, it was grass, she knew, remembered it distantly but well.

“And where d’you think you got this?” she asked, angling back her head the better to see the black leather jacket, studs around both pockets, zips unfastened along both sleeves.

“I don’t think,” Sheena said, doing her best to swerve past. “I know.”

Norma grabbed the back of the jacket with one hand and swung her round. “So tell me.”

Sheena gazed, not quite steady, not as steady as she would have liked to be, into her mother’s accusing eyes. “Dee-Dee,” she said. “That’s where. My friend, Dee-Dee, she lent it me. Right?”

But before Norma could say anything more, Peter was in the doorway, three cans of Kestrel balanced one above the other on the palm of one hand. “Let’s sit down, eh? Have a drink.” Winking at Norma as he pushed one of the cans into her grudging hands; aiming a kiss at Sheena’s cheek, which she only partly managed to evade. “Nice evening, eh, sweetheart? Good time?”

“I don’t think,” Sheena said, articulating over-carefully, “you should call me sweetheart.”

“Oh, and why’s that then?”

Sheena thought about it and after some consideration, decided that she didn’t know. She sat on the arm of the settee and wobbled just a little.

“For Christ’s sake,” Norma said from the armchair beside the TV, “take that coat off indoors.”

Sheena tried, but her arm got caught up in the sleeve and inexplicably, couldn’t get it free. Peter, finally, got up and helped her, Sheena starting again to laugh. Not laughing, really, giggling more like. “You’re not to call … you’re not to call …” Losing her balance, she began to topple backwards, legs kicking high in the air, arms flailing, till all she could do was collapse backwards against her father, Peter not strong enough to hold her, the pair of them sprawling on the carpet, sprawling and rolling until they ended up against the side wall, laughing and crying in each other’s arms.

“For the Lord’s sake, give over, you pair of great nazzleheads!” Norma shouted, but soon she was laughing too, despite herself, wiping her sleeve across her eyes before trying to take too much of the lager down at one time, coughing then so bad she couldn’t see for the tears and Sheena had to hold her hands while Peter patted her back and whispered in her ear for her to get a grip.

When it was over Sheena wandered off into the kitchen just in case there was any of the ice cream from Tesco left in the freezer, mint and chocolate.

Peter switched on the TV and switched it back off, springing onto the settee with arms flung wide. “Let me call you sweetheart!” he sang at the top of his reedy voice. “You belong to me!”

“Sit down, you great gillifer,” Norma called, “before you fall down.”

Which he did, clean over the back of the settee onto his head. And came up singing. Norma and Sheena hauled him to his feet and pushed him down into a chair, Norma plumping herself in his lap, while Sheena sat across the room and spooned with exaggerated care around the tub of ice cream.

“Sweetheart,” Peter whispered into Norma’s bosom and she clipped him none too seriously around the ear and told him to behave and anyway, if that was what he was after, he had another think coming.

Which he did. And when Sheena finally got tired of sitting there, watching the pair of them pretending not to paw at one another, she sashayed out past them, her parting gesture to switch out the light.

“Peter, not here …” Norma whispered.

“In that case,” Peter said, “let’s away up to bed.”

Oh, God, Norma thought, how long’s it been?

She lay awake, Peter beside her sleeping like a baby, his mouth slightly open close to her breast. Tears that Norma would cry later she had held back for fear of waking him, having to explain what she herself could not understand.

Whatever the deft magic of Peter’s hands, he had not lost it all this time away. He would tell her little or nothing about the years between, how he had come to look so downtrodden, so ill, so very thin. There was a curving scar, low on his chest, crisscross markings, faint, where the stitches had been removed. A bruise, old and yellow, which clung deep to his left thigh.

Soft against her, Peter stirred and she stroked his head, what little remained of his hair soft it was, like a baby’s hair. Don’t let me think of Nicky, Norma prayed, don’t let me think of him. Nor of Michael, her lovely baby son.

Don’t let me think of that.

Not any of that.

She turned, careful, onto her side and ran her other hand along Peter’s flank, his skinny buttock, the knobs of spine cresting his curving back. She rested her head towards his and closed her eyes, seeking sleep.