On the way to the airport I bell Seph. She’s a goer but a bit of a loose cannon and you got to watch her. Her old man is the chief of police on this small island, which is only a short hop from Piraeus, the old port of Athens. ‘My father is the chief of police for thee whole island!’ she boasts all the time. Wouldn’t mess with her over there cause the old man sounds like a proper cunt; the sort who’s probably fitted up more geezers than C&A’s.
She’s on my turf now though, or soon will be. Hopefully I’ll be on her turf soon n all. Normally I enjoy a bit of rug-munching (a gentleman’s sport long before the old bulldykes muscled their way into the picture) but she’s got a flaming Axminster down there. Thought I’d come face to face with Dr Livingstone at one point, before necessity compelled me to come up for air.
I’m waiting at the arrivals gate and then Em sees me and her face lights up for a second before she remembers she’s a teenager and I’m her old man and she just gives me an awkward pat on the shoulder instead of a hug. And it hurts, cause I wanted to wrap my arms round her and say ‘How’s my little gel then’ but I ain’t said that to her, ain’t had that sort of thing with her for bleedin years and I know that I’ve missed so much, so bleedin much, and I’ll never have it again.
Gor blimey if there ain’t bloody tears welling up in my eyes so I pull down the shades from the top of my head and point to the exit.
— Good flight? I ask, managing to keep my voice even.
— A plane’s a plane, she shrugs back, not even noticing that her old man’s all choked up.
— Yeah. You ain’t wrong.
So we get to the car and I start rabbiting on, shit really, just trying to fill in time. How’s school and all that bleedin malarkey.
— I hate school, she says as she sits with her knees up, picking at the skin round her fingers.
— Don’t be like that, I tell her. — My old man, your grandad, he used to say to me, ‘If you like school you’ll love work then live happily ever after.’
She don’t say nothing to that, just sort of rolls her eyes.
I try to explain: — What I mean is that it’s your start in life, so you gotta go in with the right attitude. You get out what you put in, don’tcha?
She just shrugs and don’t say nothing. And I suppose she’s right to be a sceptic n all. The stuff about the old man, he said nothing of the kind, I just made that up. Churchillian-style motivational speech, that sort of thing. Reality was, the old boy didn’t give a monkey’s about what I got up to at school. Yeah, she’s right, school was a load of bleedin bollocks. My teachers were all sneaky, poncey fuckers, every one of them. Well, except that Miss Johns in English; the way she’d bend over you to correct your work and them tits in that tight top and that hair cascading down in your face and the bleedin perfume… farkin well shouldn’t have been allowed. No wonder I grew up not bein able to keep my hands off skirt; damaged I was, well and truly bleedin damaged by the educational system! Should get a farking claim in! Good solicitor, that’s what I need, a decent brief, like the geezer wot sprung us all and got the compensation when the Old Bill, bless em, made another farking cock-up.
Thing was, though, the likes of Miss Johns was different. Encouraged you, didn’t they. Didn’t think they had all the questions and answers, honesty lies.
— Mum told me that you got put in jail for fighting at a football match once, when I was a baby, she says.
What the fuck is that dopey old slag saying to the gel?
This rookie scraper has evidently been trained in the Hardwick school of low blows.
— I got arrested because I was near to where it was all going off and the Old Bill was grabbing anybody, but I never got put in no jail, well, remand, yeah, but I wasn’t convicted. The case was dropped; I got compensation cause they was proved to be in the wrong. That’s how I got this place, and that’s how you and mum got the house, I tell her, and that’s as about as much as I want to say on that subject and I move sharply on. — So how’s things with ya then, you got a boyfriend at that school?
I’m only joking, pulling her leg, but she turns to me all seriously and says, — I don’t really like the boys at school. It may be because I’m still too young, or maybe because they’re too immature, but I think I’ve got a bit of virginity left in me yet.
Shit… that hurt…
Farkin hell, I feel like I’m about ten years old and I’ve been told off by my big sister. Then she suddenly looks at me all weird. — You used to see other women. Before you left me and Mum.
I feel my face going all cold and tingly. That way you do when there’s a few of you in a boozer and a big mob of tasty-looking geezers comes in. You’re fronting it but your bottle’s well shaky. Nobody’s saying nothing but you’re just waiting for it to kick off and for some cunt to ram a flaming glass in your face. What’s farking well going on here? — Who told you that? I ask, as if I don’t bleedin well know.
— It’s true but, ain’t it? she says, sounding like somebody else. That flaming Hardwick gene.
Well on the ropes here. Think calmness and serenity. Use the experience, keep ducking and diving.
— Look, one thing you’re gonna realise in life is that there’s more than one reason why people do things. Sometimes there’s a lot of them. It takes more than one person to change things, like in a relationship.
She seems to think about this, then she goes, — These women, when you were lying in bed with them, then her voice goes harsher, — shagging them, did you ever think about me and Mum at home?
I ain’t havin this. I slow down and pull up by the side of the road. I draw a big breath. — Look, I’m your dad and we’re gonna be staying together for a bit. You got to give me some respect; I respect you, you respect me.
I don’t believe it! Mickey Baker is throwing in the towel! His corner are saying that their boy has taken enough punishment!
— Whatever, she says, now all distracted, like her mind’s on sumfink else. She opens up a magazine she’s been carrying. It’s one of them celebrity gossip shit-sheets that kids and thick cunts read. The so-called celebs are mostly Luton reserves level; there’s some fat munter who once had a hit record and is now bloating for England and ramming Colombia’s harvest up her hooter since her fella scarpered with a fitter bird. I worry about Em’s choice of reading: the sort of thing a Hardwick might read. More interesting to her, evidently, than her old fellah, whom she ain’t spent any proper time with in months.
I’m fuming cause I don’t know this kid at all. She’s been poisoned against me, by parties who shall remain nameless, and I’ve got my work cut out here. This ain’t my little gel. This is a weird kid whom I don’t recognise; all tall and skinny and dressed funny and comin out with all sorts of daft stuff.
— That’s what they call the Red Mountain, I point out the window, — Montana Colorada. Past them you got the Dunas de Corralejo, which has a wealth of coastal vegetation that is totally unique to this part of the world, I explain with enthusiasm. I’m thinking that they must teach them shit like that at schooclass="underline" the environment n all that for fack sakes.
She ain’t giving a toss.
— All volcanic, this is, I hear my voice tailing off in an apology as I look over to the Isle of Lobos. There seems to be some clouds over there, hope they ain’t headed this way. — We can take a trip over there, I suggest, — in a glass-bottomed boat. Fancy that, do ya?
— Yeah, she says, briefly looking up from her mag as we head up General Franco Avenue.
She ain’t flaming interested, but what can you do? We drive home and I take her down to the Herefordshire and intro her to Cynth, Rodj and the likes. She takes her stuff upstairs to the flat, and when she comes down a bit later, she’s got a book in her hand. That puts me in a more cheerful frame of mind. Better than reading those junk mags.