Fragments of writing from an abandoned book set in Hulme, Manchester.
There’s a pool of blood on the stairs – dark as port wine and congealing. A trail of spots leads off into the gloom of the stairwell like ellipses. A cliff-hanger ending. There could be a body down there. Cold and stiff or even still breathing, waiting to be found. The orange light flickers like a migraine and the blood almost glows. Somewhere behind the flats, someone repeatedly strikes metal against metal. Again. And again. And again. On. And on. And on.
Steam rises from the chimney of the brewery and smudges into the darkening sky. Back on the walkway, a dog has appeared. Its feet skitter and scratch on the concrete floor. It stops at the blood and sniffs.
In the distance, there’s a shout and the clanking of the metal ceases. There is a moment of complete silence and then the dog begins lapping at the puddle of blood.
*******
Three people at the bus stop.
Jonesy. Dragging his thumb repeatedly over the wheel of his lighter, cigarette drooping from his bottom lip. The lighter issues small showers of sparks but offers up no flame.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ mumbles Jonesy, without moving his lips so as to keep the fag from falling.
Letitia. Twirling a finger through her long auburn hair until it coils around it. She pulls out the finger and begins the process again. She is chewing on gum and the grey-white substance is occasionally visible between the lines of her teeth. Now and again, she pushes it forward to the front of her mouth with her tongue and idly attempts to blow a bubble. It is chewing gum though, not bubble gum, and it quickly ruptures.
Mrs Barnes. Clasping her hands behind her fawn anorak. Her head is bowed and she is looking at an irritating smudge of mud on her otherwise immaculately polished Hush Puppy shoes. She lifts her right foot and rubs the top of the shoe against the back of her trouser leg. The smudge doesn’t shift.
The bus is now seven minutes late.
*******
The water in the bath is no longer hot. He hasn’t moved for he doesn’t know how long, his eyes tracing paths along the lines of grout between the tiles.
Eventually, he hauls himself upright and cupping his hands, throws some of the lukewarm water against his face. He closes his eyes and listens to the water drip from his face back into the bath. The sound reminds him of the leaky gutter outside his bedroom window when he was a child.
Opening his eyes, he reaches for the can of shaving foam and squirts a meringue of it into his hand. Using the mirror, propped up behind the taps, he spreads the foam across the lower half of his face and throat.
He picks up his razor, dips it into the bathwater and begins to draw it through the foam, rinsing the blade in the bath as he does so. A smear of watery foam, specked with his short beard hairs spreads out across the water’s surface between his legs.
Just under his chin, the blade breaks the surface of the skin, causing him to wince momentarily. A bead of deep red blood forms and then begins to run down his neck. When it meets the bulge of his Adam’s apple, the bead reforms, trembles for a second and drips into the water below. A thread of red coils and writhes like a worm, like red smoke suspended beneath the surface.
He stares blankly into the mirror and feels the urge to take the blade of the razor and slice into his grey skin; to carve it open in livid red streaks.
*******
Sandra sits behind the counter filing her nails with an emery board. Her face, dry and lined, is without expression. Her eyes are unfocussed and unmoving as she drags the emery board back and forth across her fingernails. A poorly tuned radio fuzzes in and out of a tune.
She finishes working on her nails and rubs the tip of the index finger of her left hand across her thumbnail to assess its smoothness. Satisfied, she places both hands , palms down, on the glass counter.
Nothing happens.
Smoke curls from the cigarette clamped between her lips; apart from the occasional slow blink of her eyelids, it is the only movement in the shop.
*******
Here comes Charlie – doing his rounds. Shuffling between tables and rooting through the ashtrays, looking for any stubbed-out fags with a few drags-worth left in them. Bitten nails, dirt in the cracks in his fingertips, fingerless gloves.
He’s at our table now, doing that strange muttering to himself. We ignore him: everyone does. His eyes, like those of a crow, sizing up the fag ends. There’s one that makes the grade evidently ‘cause he’s got his tin out and is scrabbling to get the lid off with his crooked fingers. Once it’s off, he fishes out the spent cigarette and adds it to today’s harvest, pushing the lid back onto the tin and dropping it in his pocket. He wipes his ash smudged fingers on his coat and is about to move off when he spies a pint glass on the windowsill behind Angie. There’s half a pint of bitter still in it. A cigarette floats in the brown liquid like a corpse in a lake on a TV detective show. He signals towards it, muttering to himself. Angie twists in her seat to get it and hands the glass to him. He takes it in his left hand and dips three fingers of his right into the beer to scoop out the fag. Like a body in a lake, the cigarette is bloated from its time in the beer and the paper ruptures as he lifts it from the beer. A few flakes of tobacco fall back into the glass. Charlie makes a snort of annoyance but raises the glass to his lips and takes a gulp anyway. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he drinks. Then he turns and heads off to the next table to continue his scavenging.
‘He’s like a vulture,’ says Angie.
‘Dirty bastard,’ says Karen.
*******
Grey flagstones.
Wet, grey cardboard.
Grey haired man in a grey overcoat.
Grey steps leading to a grey landing.
Grey faces through grey windows; grey curtains hanging limply to each side.
Grey walls, five storeys tall.
Grey rain from grey clouds makes grey puddles.
Grey skin.
Grey school uniforms.
An orange bus pushes along the horizon and the greyness closes up behind it.
*******
A dribble of sodium barely illuminates the walkway. Uncertain footsteps crunching in the grit of the concrete floor, always wary of the possibility of dog shit from the dogs wandering the decks. A light rain carried by the wind into the walkway, head bowed against the curtain of drizzle. Hands thrust into pockets. A cough; another oyster-like lump brought up and spat out onto the floor. He feels the hollowness of his hunger, accentuated by the knowledge that the cupboards in the flat are empty. Probably lucky if there is a teabag or a few grains of Nescafe in the jar.
*******
Sometimes he just needed to go and kick fuck out of someone. Just to feel his boot slam into flesh and bone and teeth. Just to show them. Just ‘cause everything was so fucking unfair. He’d go mad if he didn’t do it once in a while.
Sometimes they thought he was trying to rob them and they’d pull out their wallets and beg him to take it and leave them alone. It wasn’t about money though. It was about seeing and hearing them crumple; about that bitch at the job centre; about his fucking mam and dad; about Marcia; about his brother being a spastic; about people being cunts.
Sometimes the cunts just got too much for him and now some cunt was going to get a fucking good hiding.
*******
His legs were numb from just above the knees down to his feet and it felt like a concrete slab was pressing on his chest. He dragged himself into a sitting position and reached for his fags.
His trembling hands had to stab at the side of the box several times before the match flared and he could light the cigarette. He lay back against the pillow and pulled hard on the cigarette. The smoke filled his lungs and he felt his chest unfold, a warm chain of pleasure spreading like a road map across his knotted chest. His eyes rolled back in his head and he opened his mouth to let the smoke tumble out.