CHAPTER 58
I didn’t go back for the verdict, but to no surprise on my part it was a guilty one. Twat. Barry left it a month or so, but in early December, a hired van was enough to transfer all of my stuff, plus some of Amina’s, to our new place in Cathays. We had a bedroom. We had two spares; it was rather like one of those video games where you build an empire, as we had all that space but only some of it was occupied.
Gemma’s may have just become a regular point of call. Enough said.
We had, well, dinner parties. By that I mean that we had friends round, we ate food, we drank stuff, and Amina and I settled steadily into life as a couple. It wasn’t completely smooth, because Angela was ever there, but, well, we learned, slowly, and behind all my worries, all my doubts, was the simple knowledge that Amina would always be mine. I simply had to learn to let myself be hers.
She was also settling into her job, which was clearly focussed on pollution control. It was slightly odd, because so much of her work-related conversation consisted of ‘I can’t tell you more than that’ it was almost as if she was really working for MI5.Christmas caught us unawares, though, despite her new status as a ‘spook’, and we ended up driving her mother’s car around three, count them, megastores, via three, count them again, manic crowds of other last-minuters.
We had agreed that we would keep our presents down to things for the house, for while I had had some of the ‘sticks’ mentioned earlier, the place was empty. It also wasn’t ours, so things like fitted wardrobes were out of the question, so the flat-pack furniture shops got a beating, and as my sofa and easy chairs belonged with my old flat, we went with Amina’s idea, a bed-settee for those evenings when decadence called. Large screen TV, decent film or two, wine, and no need to change rooms. It also gave me somewhere to crash if I came in very late from a shift and Amina needed a good night before work.
There was another reason for that, which I didn’t tell her, and that was the simple fact that I would always be having more jobs like the dead baby, and sometimes I just needed somewhere to cry myself to sleep without worrying her. I left a sleeping bag behind the settee for those nights.
I was off on the Christmas holidays but, on the usual one on/one off, Tom and I picked up New Year, but thank all the gods not a night shift. The late shift was bad enough, but we were away before it got fully feral, Gary and Shona taking over, the poor sods. My New Year came in our front room for the first but far from last time.
Christmas, though, we went out, or rather in, to the Smugglers, where it was most certainly party time, complete with Approved Guest List operated by a couple of bears. There was a queue to get in, and we saw several people turned away, including a couple of clones, an odd man with a Tintin quiff and what looked very much like a ‘girls’ night out’ group, who must have been close to hypothermia.
There was noise from all directions as we entered the main doors, but Amina tugged me back as I went to open the door to our usual spot.
“When did that go up?”
There was a small and clearly new brass plaque over the door saying something like: ‘The Elaine Powell Bar; probably the best bar named after a policewoman in the world’
“Who’s Elaine Powell, Jen?”
“I think she was the one who set up that special investigation lot, nabbed that queerbasher gang”
“She be happy with her name up in a gay bar?”
“Rumours I’ve heard, she’s not just on our bus but bloody driving it”
“Ah. Pint or fizz?”
“Pint, woman, please”
The bar was actually quieter than the rest of the pub, but only just. Lil, LIL, was wearing a flashing Santa hat and a silly T-shirt, Ox had antlers and Marlene had a fairy at the top of her wig. It was mooning, but still a fairy.
“Time to turn and run if you want, love”
“And miss the fun? Is that a fairy or an angel, love?”
“Butterfly wings not pigeon wings, and that looks like a cock for a wand, so my money is definitely not on it being an angel”
I did my usual visual sweep of the bar: Scott and Omar; a horde of Debbie’s brood, but no Gemma; Barry with a crowd of people, some of whom I recognised; a scattering of twinks, bears and diesels; no clones. Each of us got a kiss from Lil as we ordered, and then it was mingling time.
“Hiya, you two!”
“Hi Barry! How long you been here?”
He glanced at his crowd, where a very loud redhead was shouting about whips, and managed to look slightly embarrassed.
“Er, yeah. That’s the problem when Inspector Powell is out, and it gets even worse when her wife’s along. Please tell me there’s no karaoke”
Amina perked up.
“I like karaoke, me!”
“Say that again after Di’s had a go. Bryn said it, aye? She has an individual approach to key and melody. How’s the house?”
I looked down at Amina, who nodded back at me: go on.
“Honestly, it feels a bit like camping out. Got so used to living in small spaces that all the room is a bit, you know, way out there. Having stairs is a new thing!”
Amina joined in.
“Back garden is going to be a Summer thing. I can just see us on sun loungers, cold drink to hand…”
Barry laughed.
“In this country?”
Amina shrugged.
“Rain loungers, then. Still loungers. Maybe a barbie”
“Well, any problems, you know where to find me. Best get back to the gang., or my liver will think I’ve let it off the leash. Lash? Whatever”
There was no karaoke, as it turned out, though Marlene did deliver a number of Christmas carols, filtered through her own special sense of taste and decency, which is all I will say on the matter. Most of me got home by taxi in the small hours of Boxing Day, but my legs, balance and other aspects took a day or so to follow. Note to self: do not drink with coppers.
I was right back to Earth on January ninth, though, as we bagged yet another hypothermia victim. I would never, ever get used to that, and on the next run of lates I persuaded Tom to set our lurking spot closer to the city centre, or at least Splott, and there were more than a few nights where we saw a white Ford Transit parked up as Debbie did her Lady of the Mugs bit. There was one phrase that kept running through my mind, as I saw her and others trying their hardest to fill in the cracks that far too many people fell through, and that phrase was ‘Why does it have to be this way?’.
I mean, it isn’t a shit world. The presence of people like my beloved Angela, or even Debbie herself, whatever her background was, showed me that, but it seemed to have a default setting of being utterly dreadful to those least able to cope.
Dydd Dewi Sant finally arrived, though, daffodils everywhere along with the usual leek-based silliness, and with the warmer weather came warmer news. Tom and I were sitting in St Dai’s canteen, as was our habit whenever given the chance, and we were in our usual seats, his facing the telly so that he could take the piss out of the real-time subtitles on the rolling news channel.
“Bloody hell!”
“What you got, butt?”
“That big mouth of a councillor. He’s been nicked”
“Which big mouth exactly?”
“Ashley Evans. Only been charged with bloody rape!”
“Fuck! I wonder who?”
“That’s the thing, Jen. The victim’s been named”
“Sorry?”
“Hang on… Right. Says she’s waived her right to anonymity so that other victims might feel safe to come forward. Oh…and there’s more. His assets have been frozen by the Revenue! Somebody really doesn’t seem to like Councillor Evans”
I turned in my seat to avoid the selected highlights according to Tom, and there was a picture of the alleged victim, and to my astonishment, it was the woman Barry had pointed out as the non-queen of karaoke.
“That’s Barry’s mate Diane”
“I know, Jen. I am going to fly a kite here, but are they talking about Southerndown?”
A fifteen-year-old girl with a broken cheekbone, and several others. The ones I had wondered about, how such a pattern had been allowed to continue for so long. The uncharitable part of my mind contrasted the decisive action taken to stop men like Omar being raped, so I told it to piss off and be sensible. This was copper as victim now, and while I could only assume that they might be a little keener to sort this particular rape out, I had no issues with that whatsoever.
Not just a broken cheekbone, I had heard, not just rape, but pissed on afterwards. Time for Evans to discover the real meaning of ‘trickledown’.