That was what he said, and looked fierce while saying it. It might have been male boasting but that didnt mean it was false. Only this time was different, the two homeless guys made it different. What was it about them? Something.
Helen didnt see Danny as a coward. Neither was her ex. But they were not like the toughest, the real dangerous ones. When you worked in casinos you saw them. They had that certain quality. It didnt matter the nationality, it was them as individuals, a thing they had that was dangerous, like a twisted mentality. Other men left them alone, just like now with the homeless guys. Except if it was bravado, if they had had too much to drink and were beyond the sensible stage. Then they tried to speak or joke with these dangerous ones, like they were on an equal footing. It was childish. The dangerous ones smiled or else ignored them but eventually they didnt; it might only be a stare but it was enough to call their bluff like in poker at the late stage, when somebody gets asked the question: You raising or what? What you doing? It is up to the bluffers what they do but whatever it is it will be a real thing with a real consequence. Bluffing doesnt come into it. If they arent ready for that then stop the stupidity, just shut up, go away.
Danny had kept his head down. It was the best thing too because what if he hadnt? The way the tall skinny one was staring at him. You didnt know what would happen. Some could be calmed. Some couldnt. That is part of the threat. What if they lose it altogether. These dangerous ones are telling you that, this is what they mean. Better stop it now, better leave me alone. Some men made you shiver. Nobody knew what they might do, and who to. Females or males, it didnt matter. They were capable of anything and would do it to anybody. Even children, poor innocent children, if they got in the way. Only look at them the wrong way, and if they lost their temper. If they had a knife, or just the violence, jumping and kicking, kicking people’s heads. That violence was everywhere. So if that was Danny’s worry, it might have been, and quite right too, why take chances. Except he didnt phone for help, why not? If these other drivers would have come to his rescue, why didnt he? Two homeless guys, surely that wasnt a worry? And if it was Brian, Brian was not dangerous, he wasnt.
So weird. Imagine she told Caroline and Jill. What would they say? Nothing. There wasnt anything really. Stop the car! Go and see him! But would they say that? No, they wanted home, home. Anyway, they would think she was mistaken.
How could it be Brian? He wasnt even in London. But he was in England, the last she heard, he was working in Liverpool. Mum must have told her.
They hadnt seen each other for twelve years. Gran’s funeral. He had come home for that. Not for Dad’s, he didnt come home for Dad’s. He came home for his grandmother but not for his father.
Sad. It was another world. She shifted on the seat to see through the rear window. The taxi had left the riverside several streets ago, passed down a slope and beneath a railway bridge, turning and passing the place where the old mortuary building stood, near where they held the car-boot sale on Sundays. Her and Mo came regularly. Mo was her boyfriend. She and her six-year-old daughter lived with him. Her street was the first drop-off point, thank God. She would be there in ten minutes, in thirty lying beside him. The very thought! But it was true, Mo was like normality. If only she could close her eyes and count to ten, then open them again and there she was beside him. She sat back on the seat. Jill was looking at her. Helen smiled.
An hour later and she was home but still sitting in the kitchen, still wearing her coat and shoes. She held a photograph in her hand. Others lay on her lap, and a few on the floor. She brought them out as soon as she got home. It didnt depress her seeing them but neither did it cheer her up. Family was family. No matter what. People said that and it was true. Blood is thicker than water. If it was Brian it was Brian. It was so unlikely. But if it was. She smiled for some reason, a weary smile, ironic also. Families dont finish. You run away but they catch you up. Families are ghosts. Presences. What if he had recognised her?
She drew the coat about her shoulders, feeling a bit shivery. She should have gone to bed. Of course she should have, she had been working all night, she was tired and cold. A gas-boiler system gave the heating and hot water but made such a noisy clanking sound she never switched it on first thing in the morning in case it wakened the entire household. Mo said it needed an overhaul. Probably it did but he was wondering if he and a mate could do it themselves, and they couldnt. People had to be qualified for that job. Gas can be dangerous.
Anyway, tenants shouldnt have to overhaul the heating system, even if they know how, it was the landlord’s job. Mo took matters on that he should have left alone. It wasnt his business.
She glanced at the photograph in her hand: one of her mother seated with a baby in her lap. The baby was Sophie. You couldnt tell the important thing which was Mum’s lack of interest. That was something for a child to know about her own grandmother. Eventually she would. Children come to know these things. It was sad. Who was the loser? Not Sophie. If Mum wanted to be foolish that was her.
Imagine a child and she didnt go to you. A mother to daughter was something but a grandmother? What could a little child have done to deserve that? Nothing at all. It was not possible. It could only come from the grandmother. The truth revealed was the relationship between the grandmother and her own daughter. That was so glaring. How Mum was with Sophie was how she had been with Helen. She never had been close to Helen, never.
It was sad and didnt have to be. That made it sadder. It would have been so easy for it not to be the case. Sophie could be standing next to Mum and taken her hand the way children do, just reached up and taken her grandmother’s hand, and Mum would — what? what would Mum do? She would look at the hand: a tiny hand in her own; her granddaughter’s hand. She would wonder at that, why children are so trusting. She would think to let go the hand because that would be her inclination but wouldnt be able to because that tiny hand, the child’s hand
Children take things for granted, and why shouldnt they? In the nursery back in Glasgow parents had been encouraged to stay with the children for periods of the day. Helen stayed occasionally and saw how a child looks at you to see if you are friendly. They look at you. If you arent friendly they see it in you, even the smaller ones like if you try to lift them and they arent yours. People do that, they lift up a child and the child doesnt want to be lifted. She does but she doesnt. Not by somebody strange. If it was Sophie: Leave me leave me leave me! Mum Mum Mum, and kicking and kicking and the person would have to put her down and just smile, pretending it was okay. It happened once when Mo was with her, in that same nursery and Sophie started screaming at a man who lifted her. He was one of the fathers. Sophie fell and he picked her up. He didnt see Mo or if he did he didnt think he was the parent. Mo was Asian so how could he be? That would have been the man’s thinking. It was accidental. The man had acted instinctively, and Sophie too. The teacher said she was ‘over-reacting’ which made it sound like Sophie’s fault and that was total nonsense. Sophie screamed and thank God she screamed. It was right that she screamed, she was defending herself. Girls have to; just dont lay a finger on me, dont dare lay a finger on me, and if anybody did, God help them. Screaming was so important. Men could laugh but it was. It was men had to learn. Some did and some didnt.