It’s a dangerous thing, minding your own business. Take my word for it . You hear about it all the time on the telly. People are always just minding their own business when they get stabbed by a nutter, or abducted by little grey men from Mars. Take serial killers. They always keep themselves to themselves. Minding their own business while skinning a prostitute or two. Just ask their neighbours, they’ll tell you. If you ask me, people should take a bit more notice.
So I suppose you could say I was asking for trouble that morning I was just minding my own business. I was daydreaming. Staring into space from the Rocket when he flew past my window. Dropped 27 stories like a stone to rock hard concrete. Not that I recognised him. I mistook the poor bastard for a bag of rubbish thrown out of the window by the lazy cow upstairs. It wasn’t until I slid the window open and peered 10 storeys down that I remembered: it was Monday. It wasn’t bin day after all.
- Shite.
- What yer swearing at Mammy?
Courtney, bless her. She hated me swearing. She really did. She glared at me like she was fucking Mother Theresa or something.
- Nothing pet, I banged me head on the window.
I leaned out of the window again, edging a bit further this time, trying to grip the frame with my clammy palm. Not too far. I went dizzy, felt a bit sick, but I needed to make sure. Subbuteo-sized shoppers sprinted over from the precinct. A scream reached my ears. I was sure now, but I’m still not sure I believed it.
- Courtney pet, I said, edging my arse off the window sill and shutting the freezing Tyneside air out behind me. I snapped the lock tight, tested it twice, once more for luck.
- Yes mammy?
- Just stay here for a minute. Mammy’s got to pop downstairs for a minute.
- OK Mammy.
I smiled at her, paused to plant a kiss on her blonde hair, but my mind was elsewhere. So was my heart. It was banging, already racing to the lift, racing downstairs to see what had passed by my window. A big part of me did want it to be just a rubbish bag I’d seen, it really did, but I liked the buzz of what I knew it really was. I said a quick prayer under my breath as I fished under the dirty laundry for my discarded trainers. I rammed my feet in, and made a quick sign of the cross as I made my way to the door, muttering a quick amen. It’s not that I’m Catholic or anything but I just didn’t know what else to do.
The central heating in the Rocket had swollen the door tight shut again. My size four footprint on the once-white wall showed how hard I had to yank it. Usually it was a blessing. Usually it kept the smell of piss from the communal corridor from seeping into the flat and into my nostrils where it lingered to remind me of where I was. I never really got used to it. The rancid Rocket and the rotten people who caused it. Some good people lived here of course, most of them were OK really. Salt-of-the-earth types, my Mam called them.
They kept their flats clean, helped with your shopping and looked out for everyone. I liked that. But it was the dirty ones, the ones who shot up in the lift, leaving their smack-filled syringes for others to sidestep, that I hated. They fucked things up for everyone. They were the ones who robbed your house, who sold your video to the highest bidder in the pub on the corner. They’re the ones who made it stink like a dogs arse.
I took a big gulp of air, and held my nose as I made my way to Leanne’s house. I kicked a needle, fresh from a junkie's arm, to one side. I promised myself I’d pick it up later. I didn’t want to die of Aids or anything.
Leanne’s doorbell was knackered again, you could see the wires sticking out, so I knocked hard on the door. She was always dead slow. Especially now with the baby on the way.
- Howay Leanne, I shouted through the letterbox.
- What the hell’s up with ye, Debs? I’m watching two sisters ripping each other hair oot on the telly.
Leanne looked like she had a beanbag shoved up her lycra top. Her white flesh was criss-crossed with angry red lines. It oozed over the top of her jogging bottoms. I wished she’d keep it covered but she liked showing off her bump. Like the lasses in the magazines, she always said.
- Sod the telly Leanne, I think someone’s just topped themsels’ oot the Rocket.
- Shut up, man.
- Nah man, honest, howay. Open the door. Me knees are killing us.
I heard the key the chain slide and the door open with its familiar squeak. Leanne’s brown eyes were as wide as her belly.
- No!
- Aye! I’ve just seen it. Put yer coat on. It’s Baltic oot there.
My guts told me it was a bad idea as I pressed the button to call the lift. I wanted to listen, but Leanne was with me now and I didn’t want to look stupid, like I was scared, but I suppose I was a bit. A ball of elastic bands pulled tight in my belly, they made me feel sick and catapulted the blood to my hands and into my ears, where it pounded red hot. The last time I felt like that was back in July. The night the police knocked on me door. The night me Da died. I’d slept badly and when I saw the kaleidoscope glow of their fluorescent coats through the frosted glass of the front door, I knew why. I felt my arse go. I wanted to shite there and then. I don’t know why I was so bloody surprised though. I suppose I’d always expected it. They found him on his back in the park clutching a drained bottle of whisky like his life depended on it. It usually did. This time it took it. Christ, the lift was slow. I jabbed at the button.
- Well?
Leanne’s sharp finger poked me in the back, making me jump.
- Oww, that hurt!
- Well, what the fuck’s happened, like? Me coffee’ll get cold.
- Look, I’ll make you another one later, just come with us.
- I knaa, but I’d just got some of that new posh stuff. I was looking forward to that coffee.
- Shut up will yer Leanne. I think someone’s just jumped off the top of the Rocket and I want to go down and see.
- Why?
I paused for a second, like I heard myself before I even said it. I knew it was true though.
- Because the telly cameras might be there.
I didn’t want to see Leanne rolling her eyes, so I picked at a piece of flaking paint on the wall. It twisted and turned over as it made its short journey to the stained carpet tiles below.
- Not this again.
I looked up at just the wrong second. She was rolling her eyes.
- So…
- So you thought you’d get me to look at some mangled up bloke as well, just so you can get on the bloody telly?’
- Aye, basically.
The lift greeted us at the 10th floor with a ‘ping’ and we both squeezed in.
- Does me hair look alright?’
I breathed on the lift’s graffiti-streaked mirror and rubbed at it with my cardigan sleeve. ‘Malla’ had been here, and Daz loved Sorrell, ‘4Eva’. I ducked until I found a clear reflection.
- For fuck’s sake Debs, we’re going to see a dead lad. He’s not going to be looking at yer hair, is he?’
- But the telly cameras will, won’t they?’
She tutted. Proper rolled her eyes at me this time. I hated it. I didn’t let her know though. She would have just done it again. Leanne was like that.
- I wish I’d changed out me pyjamas.
Leanne glanced down at my legs. I hoped she couldn’t see them shaking.
- Why?
- Maybe put me new top on as well. The black one with the V-neck from me Mam’s catalogue.
I liked that one. It made my tits look good and flashed the tattoo I’d had done last year.
- Howay Debs. Ye knaa ye look good. Ye always do. Here, let us do my hair as well. You-know-you might be around
Leanne patted her massive tummy conspiratorially. I winced. She looked like her waters were going to piss out any second and I didn’t want a bairn on me hands. I was never any good with blood.