CHAPTER 42
Not good news at all, I thought, wondering if we were going to see a repeat of schooltime fallings-out, where friends were pushed hard to take a side, pick the ‘real’ friend over the ‘false’ one, but Amina had been clear on that issue. Same people, just no longer a couple.

The weather wasn’t helping, my birthday having flown past as unnoticed as I could manage. There was too much bound up in such an occasion, none of it calling for celebration. I was off the next day, so it was another evening of tears before and during bedtime, as well as waking up in a chair again, as the light slowly emerged outside my living room window.

I simply felt lost, everything I had invested, all my dreams, someone I knew without any possibility of doubt that I had loved fully and completely, all gone because two excuses for humanity had decided to race through back streets for shits and giggles.

And now Amina and Lil. I suspect, with the glorious clarity of hindsight, that the night of my birthday may have been the closest I have ever come to ending everything. Physician, fucking heal yourself, indeed.

I did manage to deliver a different person to work, though, and Tom and I built up a sizeable collection of memories many involving RTCs, and, as the weather really turned shitty, several more cold and damp victims of despair found wrapped in sodden cardboard and discarded copies of newspapers whose owners simply didn’t give a shit about the dead person wearing them in desperate need for warmth.

Tom and I were rostered off over Christmas, but I volunteered for extra shifts, ostensibly to let other people have family time, but really to avoid another set of mornings waking up in an armchair with empty bottles all round me. Elf had dropped hints that I would be welcome at her clubhouse for either or both of the holidays, but I knew what she was hoping, and I also remembered those very heavy hints about distancing myself from what was, in all ways, an organised crime gang.

I liked Elf; I actually admired her, in many ways. I even felt envious of her, locked as she was into such a solid surrogate family. I simply couldn’t ever fancy her.

It was Marlene, of all people, who kicked my backside, turning up at my flat in ‘drab’. God knows who’d given her my address, but there she, he was, a surprisingly nondescript man, but the queen was still there underneath.

“Jen, it’s been a shit year for all of us. I could never match… We all miss her, you know? But with all the other shit… Omar’s out of hospital, trying to make a big joke of things, but there are some of my little boys we haven’t seen for months. Frightened, they are. Mood is… Climate of fear, that’s the usual soundbite, and then there’s you”

“What about me?”

“People care about you, love. People LIKE you. People see you as the dream come true, aye?”

She watched as I felt my face crumple.

“Yes, we know. You still found her, though. I never have”

“You’re not into women”

“You know what I mean, woman”

“Didn’t work for Lil and Amina either”

“Oh, Lil’s a fucking idiot. Look, people love you, girl. They worry about you. When they don’t see you, they lose their own hopes. And… Shit, so many little boys hurt. People need a bit of hope. You, out on New Year, that might help a few cope that might otherwise fold”

“So you just want me back as a morale booster?”

“No, because I actually think a lot of you. And because I looked in your bin before I knocked, and I don’t want you slipping into that trap”
.
I think that she was the one who broke my resolve, and I started to arrange my New Year’s Eve properly.

Tom and Connie had been just as insistent, demanding that I have the evening of January the second at theirs, so I was, in all honesty, trapped. I took a bus to the Smugglers on NYE, but Marlene had promised taxis for the return, so I could relax just a little.

My usual bar was decked out in Thunderbirds stuff for some reason, and when I looked into the disco, the DJ was wearing a Captain Scarlet uniform. Whatever; the leather bears remained leather bears, the diesels were as heavy-fuel-oil as ever, and those twinks still attending wore their oversized white vests in the same old way.

As usual, the Smugglers had a distinct lack of clones, but there were still a few straights, which said an awful lot about Marlene’s sense of community. She had been very, very direct about it.

“Those cunts can fuck off to the Ram, ride their own fucking moustaches”

As Dai put it, fair point, fairly made. I did the expected stuff, saying hello to friends and semi-strangers, and prodding Lil for feedback on the Amina situation, but she just clammed up. The evening moved on steadily, in the usual NYE fashion, and then I noticed Lil spending more than a few moments talking to some woman in a microdress, at least in her forties, and then Amina was dropping into a seat next to me.

“That’s Shelley, Jen. Can’t commit, can flit, obviously, Lil”

“You jealous?”

“No, not really. Just, I dunno, disappointed”

She waited a few seconds before adding, “Mam’s worried about you”

“I’m fine”

“Neither of us believe that, and nor does Mam”

“Well, I’m here tonight”

She nodded.

“Expect more than a few people checking up, Jen. Scott and Omar are heading this way for starters. Find a smile, please”

“I didn’t smile for you”

“I know you; they don’t”

I did as asked, and got hugs and kisses from both men, who simply pulled up a couple of chairs and continued the process of ending my isolation. Omar was bubbling, which surprised me, and when he went off to the loo, using a stick but walking, Scott explained.

“It’s that new police team, Jen. They’ve been really, what’s that word, proactive? Got a twink working with them, and he is just sooooo camp! It’s like the first time I went to a gay bar. I don’t know what he does for them, but even Omar ended up in the other sort of stitches. They’re not letting this lot go, love, but, well, whatever happens needs to happen soon. Omar, well, without you and Tom…”

“Could have been any of our crews, Scott”

“Yeah, but it was you two, so take a thank you. You going on anywhere later, or just staying here?”

“Ah, I’ll stay for the bongs, then get one of Marlene’s taxis”

I paused, then added, “Going over to Tom and Connie’s in a couple of days” as a reassurance, whether for him or Amina wasn’t important.

We stayed as a foursome through the evening, keeping half an eye on the screen Marlene had rigged over the bar, showing nothing but a digital clock. Lil swapped saliva with ‘Shelley’ a few more times, the boys moved from lager to prosecco, as was their habit, and I stayed on various ‘dead log water’ brews, Amina settling into a round of two with me as our glasses emptied.

Just before midnight, I was at the bar topping up our drinks, and got a quiet, “Hiya” from my right.

There was a diesel beside me, clearly hoping, as Ange had, for that midnight moment, and I was about to give my standard ‘Don’t do butch women’ disclaimer when Marlene cut the bongs into the PA system. Shit. I still had Amina’s drink---
I was nudged sharply in my left side, which gave me the excuse to turn away from the denim jacket, and then…

Amina picked up her new glass just as the first of the twelve loud notes sounded, looked at the wine, then put it back on the bar, and as Lil lip-locked with Shelley, Amina simply reached up with her right hand, pulled my head down and kissed me.

It started softly, but, well, I was already feeling very little pain, and my resistance wasn’t working, and it was traditional, and…

It got rather steamy, to be honest, and when she tried a little push of her tongue, I couldn’t hold back. We broke, eventually, but I was left feeling bloody confused, all sorts of thoughts going round my head, and the one shouting the loudest was ‘BETRAYAL’.

We broke apart, carrying our drinks back to our table, where Scott and his lover were still being enthusiastically traditional, and I looked meaningfully at the ladies’.

Once in, I asked her, directly, “Where did that come from?”

Amina shook her head.

“I was just trying to get that butch to bugger off. It… I only intended, you know, a peck, but… I thought my knees were going to buckle. Then, well, I just thought, ‘go with it, Khan’. God knows what Lil thought”

A few seconds later, she added, “And what did you think?”

“I have no idea, woman. Or rather, I think this is something I need to think about when I’m, no, when we are both sober. Not tonight, please”

By mutual agreement we stayed apart for the little time we had before I boarded the taxi home.

How the hell had that happened?

I kept it to myself over the next few days, especially with Tom and Connie, where I was once again fed well and buried in dogs, all wanting a scratch just there, or a pat here, or simply a warm thigh to slump against while farting. We were back in at work on Friday, and that was when the news broke.

Tom and I were in our staff canteen, getting a late unhealthy breakfast after a couple of NHS taxi runs, and he was sitting, as was his habit, so that he could see the TV screen that carried the rolling BBC news service.

“It’s not the news, Jen, it’s the subtitles. Rather, well, they type out what they hear, and sometimes it is so wrong it’s wonderful. I love to try and work out what they actually heard, and some of the mistakes are inspired, if that’s the right word. Still got some screengrabs at home of really good ones”

“Such as?”

“Well, there was a report on some far-right politician, and the presenter used the words ‘personality cult’, and there was a typo”

“Personality---NO!”

“Oh yes. I live in hope of another classic”

“You are both perverse and easily pleased, Thomas”

“I do my best---oh! This you need to see”

I twisted in my seat, to see an obviously very senior copper on some steps, with a line of people in plain clothes behind him, one of them being Sammy Patel. There were indeed typos in the subtitles, but the sense was there, especially when the picture cut to a series of obvious mugshots, one of which showed a man who had clearly either had a stroke or an injury to his right orbit, as that eye drooped.

The reporter spoke to Sammy, who gave a mixture of platitudes about having been handed a dedicated team by some predecessor with a set of slightly snarky comments about people thinking the ‘pink’ community were not protected by the law. They even had ‘Myron’, a drab Marlene, to explain how much fear had been infesting said pink community.

Gary and Shona were just coming in for their own break, and stopped by us as they watched the report, Gary shaking his head.

“We were out to that one last night, guys, me and Shona here. Just grabbing a cuppa, then talk you through it”

Shona simply pushed him at the chair.

“You do that, I’ll grab us some brews. Jen? Tom? Refill?”

We both nodded, and Gary began his story.

“Out in the West of the city, and we’re given the hurry-up shout. It’s a Transit van, surrounded by police cars, all the windows smashed, bloody land shark yapping its head off. What’s obviously been a really, really hard stop, so we’re dealing with a mix of injuries. Couple or six bruises to coppers, some handcuffed shit who’s had a hitting stick over his face, another who’s had a year’s worth of pepper spray in his face. Then we get to the real casualty. Ta, Shona. Tell them what was in the van”

“Shit, that’s what, Gaz. Jen, there was a skinny man in there, just about naked, and they’d tied his wrists and ankles, and, fuck, they had baseball bats. Got the lad to St Dai’s, let the plod pick up the other shits as none of them needed hospital work. You know what? If they had, I’d have left them there, wait their turn, aye? The victim, though; we got him through triage, and once he’s seen as safe, he begs a favour, and that’s to be taken down to the James Street nick. Apparently, he was part of the police team”

That answered one question: I now knew exactly what one amazingly brave twink was doing for that police team.