As I hung around with her more, I realised the sense of menace about her didn’t go away. You just knew that she wasn’t a girl to cross. Irresistibly, I was drawn evermore to the way she seemed to have so much control; I felt I was beginning to bond with her, like you do with a new best mate.
I ended up staying at Harry’s place for longer than I’d anticipated. I suppose I’d effectively run away from home, without actually really realising it. I preferred living as an outcast at Harry’s place to being at home – and, anyway, I knew my mum and dad didn’t want me with them (or so I thought).
I had no money, but that didn’t matter. For all the dirt and the fleas, there was always food and beer to be had, and Harry always seemed happy to buy more when it ran out. There were no rules at Harry’s, and no one seemed to mind what I did.
One time, when Emma wasn’t in, a couple of lads started telling me to watch out ‘because she slept with Asians’. I thought they just meant she had an Asian boyfriend, so I ignored it. She can do what she wants, I thought. It didn’t affect me. And what was wrong with dating an Asian guy? Nothing. I knew some Asian people in the area had the reputation of seeing English girls as ‘cheap’ due to the fact that we went drinking, and wore the clothes we wanted to, but I knew they were a minority. I did worry about attracting attention from these guys, though, as it could get ugly when it happened – I’d seen it, on the streets. So I just thought these lads were small-minded and didn’t really know what they were talking about. I chose to stay quiet.
For all that it was weird and chaotic, I was becoming attached to Harry’s place – relishing the freedom it gave me. I’d started to go home every few days, partly to say hello, partly to get bits of washing done or else collect fresh clothes. Even though Mum accepted that I’d effectively left home, she was still happy enough to do my laundry.
I’d been at Harry’s a couple of weeks when Emma asked me to go out with her one night. Well, not so much asked: more like told. But I still felt proud: made up, in fact. We had a ball, swaggering around town, chatting about nothing and everything, and drinking cider, as usual, from Lucozade bottles.
We ended up sitting on a wall outside Dunne’s store, swinging our legs, drinking, laughing whenever a taxi driver went by and tooted his horn. One driver actually stopped and then wound down his window to speak.
‘Hi, Emma,’ he said, and then, glancing at me: ‘A new friend? Want a lift anywhere?’
‘No, thanks,’ she replied with a wink. ‘We’re walking tonight.’
It seemed an odd exchange, but I thought no more about it. I felt good being with Emma, despite her bossing me about. It was like she understood. We’d both somehow ended up living at the same place, after all. Maybe we had more in common than I thought? Kindred spirits, trying to find a little bit of happiness in an otherwise dreary world. At Harry’s place and with each other, we had the freedom we craved. Freedom like I’d never known before.
Chapter Six
Tick, Tick, Tick
It was the start of the school summer holidays, and I’d woken late at Harry’s place, hung over, with a vague plan to spend the day watching TV and not much else.
Courtney had been staying there for a while, but she’d recently left soon after the night she and Emma had staggered in at around 5 a.m., Courtney stinking from the cider someone had poured over her. ‘Someone’ being Emma, I’d guessed, although Ricky had said, all mysterious, that it had something to do with some Asian men. That maybe Courtney had slept with some. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I’d told him. ‘Courtney wouldn’t do that.’ The way he had said ‘some’ made it sound dangerous, and I knew Courtney would have walked away from a set-up like that.
Courtney had seemed upset, but wouldn’t talk about it. I thought it strange because she was usually so up for everything. Not that day, obviously.
Anyway, this particular morning Emma came into my room, or rather the room I was dossing down in at the time, and said, ‘Hey, let’s go into town. We can go somewhere they’ll give us free food and stuff, probably beer. You’ll love it.’
It sounded vaguely familiar, so I asked her the name of the place she was thinking of.
‘The Balti House,’ she said.
I knew by then that Daddy had switched to the Balti House from Tasty Bites, and that he seemed to have a better job there; a more important one. I thought back to all the chicken tikkas and doners, the vodka, the dancing on the mattress at Tasty Bites, and decided it could be really cool. But then… ‘It’ll be closed,’ I said. ‘It’s only ever open in the evenings.’
Emma looked pleased at that. ‘Maybe to the rest of Heywood, but not to me,’ she said, smiling. ‘We’ll get in.’
I was impressed. ‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘OK if I ring Courtney?’
‘Whatever,’ she replied.
I didn’t mention Emma when I rang. I just asked Courtney if she fancied going somewhere for some free beer and food. She didn’t have to be asked twice.
I was hungry, and increasingly looking for some excitement. I got dressed as quickly as I could, Emma got ready too, and we headed towards town to pick Courtney up at her house.
Oddly, Courtney blushed when she opened the door and saw Emma, and looked really uncomfortable. I gave her a look, as if to say, ‘What’s up? What’s all this about?’ but she looked away.
The three of us walked into town, Emma and I laughing and joking, me saying how funny Daddy was, how he’d given us loads of food and things in the old days at Tasty Bites. I was wearing pretty much what I always wore back then: jeans, a little vest top and my favourite black jacket I’d bought on Bury Market. Velour, I think it was. God, how I loved it!
The steel shutters were down at the front of the Balti House, but Emma shouted up to one of the windows above. This, it seemed, was how she knew it wouldn’t be a problem to get into the Balti while it was closed: ‘Chef’ who, unsurprisingly, was the chef at the restaurant, lived at the place. He leaned out, a big, bearded bloke, and told us to go round the back so he could let us in. It sounded like something he and Emma had done before.
We walked in, three teenage girls, one big, two of us small to medium, through the back door and into Heywood’s worst takeaway. You can probably imagine the smell that greeted us as we walked in: stale ghee, rendered fat, from the night before, and a sweaty takeaway chef who’d thrown on some clothes and a smile but hadn’t showered.
Chef seemed like he was on a high. He beckoned us in, arms extended, hands waving, and sat us down at a table. The three of us found ourselves seated on little white, plastic chairs set around the table. That was white, too, round, and there was no cloth on it, just a few smears of grease. It was set against the kitchen wall, looking back onto the cooking rings, the sink and the clay oven. There was a set of stairs off to one side, heading up to where Chef had come from. The floor of the kitchen was tiled, with bits of food scattered about on it: lettuce, more splodges of grease, a bit of chicken. Everywhere was just a bit minging, really.
Chef was kind of the same. He had put a white apron on over his jeans and T-shirt, but it was stained with food and as greasy as the rest of his kitchen.
I began to feel a bit nervous, like we shouldn’t be there.
On the other side of the kitchen wall was the front-of-house. It was the bit I’d known before from coming in to order there. It had a counter where they had the takeaway menus for people to look at to order from, and the glass-fronted display cabinet, where they kept naff cans of drink. There was a portable TV, too, so customers could see what was happening in Coronation Street, EastEnders, or whatever.