Black and White and Red... All Over

*** Frequent profanity ***

Joe had done a bad thing. He hadn’t meant to, and wouldn’t have if things had gone to plan, had his wife been more understanding instead of nipping his head, wittering on. And if that daughter of theirs hadn’t messed up and been sacked from her job – or whatever the hell it was that had happened - then everything would have carried on as normal, and the dog would not be dead.

Much like the weather, the day had started out fine, at least as fine as could be expected, for what was life without a few clouds? He had money in his pocket, he was wearing his lucky boots (his work boots, really, but they’d brought him good luck the first day he’d put them on) and he had a sure-fire tip for Newbury. Barney the Bold, two-to-one, no great return expected, but if he went to Frank Mallen’s and put his wad on, and wasn’t tempted by Aintree – a mug’s game that, betting on the Nationals – Betty would have nothing to complain about. She’d have the money to pay her bloody electric bill and maybe even get the colour TV back, although, truth be told, black and white suited him fine, half the programmes weren’t in colour yet any roads. Besides, she’d had her housekeeping, and what had she done but frittered it away on getting her hair done. Like she could ever hope to look like Brigitte Bardot. Anyway, all they’d done was make it all flat, so she still needed to stick her rollers in to curl the ends. And then there were the steaks, and he’d seen the way that butcher looked at her. Fat as a pig and with a snout to match, Dawson had been in Mallen’s on more than one occasion, sausage of cash in hand, and a bloodied apron full of betting slips that resembled streaky bacon. There ye go, Frank. I’ll be back to collect by closing time, so if ye’ve no got enough to cover the bet, ye’d better lay it quick. Like winning was his God-given right. And on the day that he, Joe Patterson, lost his tab in Cuthberts of Gilly, and Frank wouldn’t even give him a quid on account, there was Dawson stood preaching in a gust of porky halitosis that ‘them that can’t afford it shouldn’t gamble’. Smug prick, he’d have liked to have punched his lights out, hooked him up, pot belly and all, like one of those headless carcasses that hung behind his shop counter, for although Joe wasn’t the tallest of men, and no longer the youngest, he was broad and he had muscle, and he might have done it except Frank would have had him out on his ear, and probably barred him for life.

Just as well Dawson hadn’t been in Mallen’s earlier, Joe thought, punching a fist into his palm as he sat at home on the edge of the blue-grey tapestry settee with its rips and stains and ever-more visible stuffing. The couch had been new when Liddy had come to them as a pup, so covered in hair and piss before they’d even made the first payment.

Come and fetch the bloody thing back if ye want, he’d told the man from the shop when he’d confronted him in the street after they’d fallen behind on the rest. But I’m fucked if I’m paying any more for yer shoddy furniture that comes apart at the seams the minute it’s in the house. Christ knows the wife could do a better job o’ that stitching and she canny even sew a button on without it falling off – and don’t think I won’t be putting word about either.

Betty had scolded him then, saying ‘so that was another shop she’d never dare show her face in again’, but she’d laughed about it too. And she’d stuck a blanket on top of all the hair and dried-up piss, and because it had been a profitable afternoon in more ways than one, they’d cuddled up that night eating cheese and crackers and drinking proper coffee like on the adverts – no chicory for once - watching some BBC play they couldn’t make head nor tail of, Rosie with the dog on her lap on the old discoloured armchair with the scratched wooden arms that she’d kept running into and blackening her eyes on when they’d rented that place in Gilly and folk first started saying there must be something wrong with her. They’d had the fire going, food in their bellies, and even if the house did stink of piss, and Liddy kept doing her business on the rug, they’d been happy. Well, there was none of that now, no fire, no coffee, no Rosie, no Betty, no dog, not even a coin to put in that box attached to the telly so he could see what rot they were showing now. Probably some daft comedian telling jokes about their missus threatening to leave them, and offering, for the first time ever, to help pack a case. That or ‘Lassie’…

If only that horse had come in and not made him feel a thousand times worse by being beaten in a photo finish by that cursed thirty-three-to-one shot, Betty’s Quest. Aye Joe, and you called it a nag! Didn’t I say ye should’ve backed it? All those blokes from the mill, the ones who worked under him, laughing their heads off. Yeah, yeah, big joke, but would any of the bastards give him a sub? Would they fuck, they wouldn’t even spare him his bus fare. No can do, boss, got just enough for me pint and me cigs an’ I promised the wife I’d put something on for her at Aintree. And he’d watched them all trot off to the pub to get legless, or back to their families to watch the ‘big race’ on the telly, leaving him and his empty pockets and no longer lucky, workday boots to trudge the two miles home in the pissing rain. And if it hadn’t meant him risking his job, or being barred from Frank’s for life, he’d have made better use of those boots by kicking their ‘bloody smart arses’ all the way around Gilly and down into the scummy waters of the Rene.

Barney the Bold, some fucking certainty. He’d have been just as well sticking a pin in the paper or ‘going by names’ like the housewives did, but no matter, Joe had realised as he was walking, Rosie would have her wages from cleaning – and she’d have extra this week too. That McIntyre bint who lived in new-build up the road, and reputed to be Dawson’s bit of stuff, for he’d seen his flashy red Triumph in the lane outside it often enough, wasn’t just loaded but generous with it, and knowing Betty, she’d have told the girl to keep schtum and have her squirrel some away to save him ‘getting his thieving hands on it’.

That was the thing about his wife, unlike with him, when it came to their daughter, she’d always made a big deal of not taking ‘more than was fair’, so all he had to do was get hold of Rosie’s pay, hand her mother a bit to stop her moaning, then find out where the rest was stashed, and this he’d do and no mistake even if he had to tear the whole fucking house apart. It would serve the pair of them right conspiring against him, keeping their grubby little secrets. So what if he liked a flutter? It was his money, wasn’t it? Earned by slaving away in that stinking mill keeping those tight-arse bastards in line, them and all the bitchy jabbering women (and they needn’t think he didn’t know what they said about him and his kin when he wasn’t around). Well, one day he’d show them, have them all turning green. Today had just been a bad day, his luck would change soon enough.

By the time Joe had walked around half the distance to his home just off the Selhope-Gilly Road, it had got so he’d barely noticed the rain. Even the bus that passed him at the roundabout sending a shower of cold-water sludge his way hadn’t been worth cursing about. His mind had been occupied thinking how best to search the house without causing a row. But then he’d got home and she’d flown at him like a banshee. The coalman was wanting his money, wouldn’t give them any more till they paid what was due, and how was she going to afford the electric? He hadn’t even left her enough to turn on the telly, and who the hell did he think he was, coming in like that, filthy and stinking worse than the dog, and that had been through the river. Of course, it didn’t take a genius to work out where he’d been and that he’d lost the lot, and she hoped he didn’t expect her to get that coat dry for Monday when she couldn’t even light the bloody fire.

He’d told her to ‘shut her fucking nagging’, if it was money she wanted, then to go out and get it how it she usually did, he was sure Dawson would oblige, either that or she should get her precious fucking daughter to cough up. And at that, she’d gone for his face with her nails, that witchy new hair of hers flung right where he couldn’t help but grab it.

Rosie’s no got any money. She’s no been paid and she’s no going back, but I can’t get any sense out o’ her as to why…

He hadn’t seen Rosie standing behind him until Liddy had started barking and gone for his legs. He'd let go of his shrieking wife’s hair, so the dog, although still growling and yelping, at least left off his trouser leg, but the noise on top of all else was driving him crazy.

Fucking mutt...! What d’you mean she’s no been paid? Done something wrong and got sacked more like.

He’d turned to face his daughter, taken a step towards her, that’s all. Hadn’t lifted his hand, hadn’t threatened her in any way, but she’d backed away like he’d come at her like the devil.

You… You’re evil, evil – all of you - and I’m not going take that money, I’m not!

That was it, he’d lost his temper then, he’d pushed Betty out of the way and went to give Rosie exactly what, at that point, he reckoned she deserved. How dare she speak to him like that? Her own father! And that bloody mongrel had kept on barking, on and on, snapping and snarling at his heels, so he’d kicked out – just once - but the scream that had come out of Betty’s mouth as the dog went flying told him all he needed to know, that once had been enough.

The dog whose throat had been caught on the corner of the ledge which protruded sharply below the living room window, had slumped to the floor, and as it lay there, legs barely twitching, its whimpers could scarcely be heard.

My God, what the hell have ye done? His wife had breathed the words as Rosie had just stood there mouthing, Liddy, Liddy, Liddy… Then, although he’d tried to apologise, to explain that they’d pushed him too far, and he hadn’t meant the dog any harm, Betty had gone for him again, thumping into his chest and sobbing that she’d had enough, that this was the end, before pushing Rosie towards the back door, telling her, Go! Go back to Mrs McIntyre’s. Now! And the girl had done her mother’s bidding – like she always did – with that awful, vacant look on her face, that look that had always embarrassed him when in public, when he’d tried to tell himself it didn’t matter – her being like that couldn’t be helped, it wasn’t her fault. Except this time, it had been, and because of her, all because of her, Betty was leaving him. He’d stormed to the door and yelled after his daughter. Those awful threats, those terrible words. He regretted them now, for the last thing Betty did before the door slammed behind her was to call him a murdering bastard, and although she’d been looking at the dog at the time, as he’d gone to fetch the knife to put it out of its misery, he knew that what she’d really meant was that his murdering had started a long time ago, and that this one shameful act had simply been where it had ended.

A short while later, when it had fully sunk in that this wife and daughter were gone, Joe stripped off his clothes, and flung his boots into the grate. He wouldn’t wear them again; they’d turned against him and so deserved to be burnt. But, sodden as they were, the bastards wouldn’t light. It was cold now. He needed to fetch some firewood, he also needed to bury the dog, so he had to get dressed.

He entered the bedroom which, up until that morning, he’d shared with his wife, and where, the wardrobe had been left wide open, coat-hangers and discarded articles of clothing strewn across the floor. The dressing table with its half-broken drawers and dusty mirror was missing its usual items too, swept unthinkingly as they had been, in one angry clatter of a swoop into Betty’s tatty old suitcase. In the glass he saw an unsightly hazed reflection of his limp lower parts, and as he went to grab his underwear, he cursed as one dull scratched brass handle came away in his hand. The sweater he’d worn the previous day, and his trousers too, lay unwashed in the corner of the room, but those would have to do, as would the old tweed jacket, more his father’s style than his, which had hung at his side of the wardrobe untouched since they’d moved here, and only once been worn before when in ’59, he’d been up in court for a minor affray. Musty and gross as it was, today, at last, it had found its purpose, so tossing the hanger aside, he flung that on too. Lastly, he pulled on his green ‘sheep-shagger’ boots (so called because all the farmers worn them) and not caring to glance in the mirror - he’d seen more than enough the first time – he re-entered the room where the dog lay, gathered it up in blanket, and with a kick of the claw-marked backdoor, carried it outside.

At least the rain had eased off, Joe thought, as he trudged the length of garden where nettles grew between clusters of bluebells and the daffodils had died. When he came to the hole in the fence where some bastard had pulled the planks out – for firewood most likely - he laid the dog down and retraced his steps as far as the coal shed – no coal in there at present, just an empty sack and a spade. Enough. He’d bury the dog in the blanket and use the sack for burning along with any kindling he might find when he searched the nearby thicket.

To much the same the extent that the river below had risen, sludge-brown and high that afternoon, the ground above it had softened, so digging proved easy. Two feet down – was that enough? Perhaps a little more lest other animals sniff out the dog’s remains and haul it back up.

Nevertheless, Joe was sweating, and the sooner the dog was in that hole and covered up the better. He threw the bundle in, then with the soil replaced, marked the grave with the first decent sized stone he could find… For Rosie… She could change it when she returned, plant something too, if she wanted – and she would be back, they both would, wouldn’t they? It had been an accident, after all. Betty would realise this soon enough… He stabbed the spade into the ground and left it there - fuck that hole in the fence – if some bastard came along with half a mind to steal it, they were welcome. He kicked out at the adjacent planks. Cheap, fucking, good-for-nought, rotten plywood, if any cunt’s gonna take ye for firewood, it might as well be me! There! He’d made a start, and sack in hand, Joe stepped over the damaged planks and turned into the woods.

As he gathered his twigs, Joe eyed the house where he knew his Rosie would be. Curtains drawn, and it wasn’t even dark yet, but if that snooty woman thought he’d go crawling up there, she could think again. He had more self-respect than that, even if he could have done with getting his hands on those unpaid wages. His daughter would be back soon enough when she’d had her fill of charring, and from what she’d said (what was it she’d said again?) she’d had enough already. Besides, Betty wouldn’t come for her any time soon – her sister, for that’s where she’d be heading, had made it clear in the past that their daughter wasn’t welcome, her being like she was. And as for her – Dawson’s floosy - imagine shutting the curtains to hide her, like he guessed she’d do with him, as if that would make the slightest difference. If he, Joe Patterson, really wanted his daughter, he’d just storm right in there and get her. Laughable, that’s what it was, a fucking gag straight out of The Benny Hill Show. And with that, Joe turned to resume his search for logs in those parts of the wood which bordered the lane.

It was only when he saw Dawson’s car speeding towards him that he remembered. Evil. For it wasn’t him behind the wheel, but Rosie. In a Triumph as red as the blood on a butcher’s hands…