Page 5 of Pressure Head
“Yeah. Always looking down your nose at people like me just because we came from the council estate.”
“I—What? Bloody hell, Morrison, have you even noticed you’re a foot taller than I am? If I wanted to look down my nose at you, I’d need a sodding stepladder! I can’t believe you’re even saying that.Iwas the one nobody liked. Poofski, remember? Because I haven’t bloody well forgotten what it was like, being the butt of your oh-so-funny jokes every . . . bloody . . . day.” The keys in my hand jangled as I punctuated the last few words with jabs of my finger at his overdeveloped chest.
Then I got in my van, slammed the door, and drove home, seething.
I’ve got a little house in Fleetville, which is part of St. Albans but has its own shops and pubs, so it feels like a separate community. It’s way less pretentious than most of the villages around here. It’s pretty ethnically diverse, so the shops are more interesting than in a lot of places—there’s a halal food shop and more takeaways than you could get tired of in a month of not cooking. You see a lot of ladies in saris or headscarves, and blokes in ethnic gear too. Brightens the place up, I always think. I live just off the main road, handy for the shops and the pub. Parking can be a pain—well, it’s St. Albans, isn’t it?—but I can fit the van on the drive, and there’s usually room to park my little Fiesta in front.
At least the cats were pleased to see me, I thought with a smile as I walked in my front door. Merlin wove his slender, black body in and out of my legs ecstatically, and even Arthur deigned to get off his fat, furry arse and pad into the hall to welcome me.
They’re both toms, although most people assume slim, sleek Merlin is a she. Personally, I think he’s gay. He’s always rubbing up against Arthur as if he’d like them to be more than just good friends. Fortunately Arthur’s too thick to notice. He’s a big ginger bruiser who’d probably flatten Merlin if he realised he fancied him. Not very metrosexual, old Arthur.
I fed them the dish of the day (lamb with rabbit, yum, yum) and set about rustling myself up some comfort food. A mug of Heinz tomato soup the size of your average bathtub, and hunks of baker’s bread with tangy cheddar cheese melted into it. Lovely. For dessert, I took a couple of ibuprofen. I don’t like popping pills all the time, but my hip was really killing me, and every twinge was a reminder of Phil bloody Morrison. And the accident.
I’d been seventeen when it happened. I’d made the mistake of heading out to the shops on my own. Just as I turned a corner, I ran straight into Phil Morrison and his gang. Literally.
He hadn’t been pleased to see me. “Oi, watch where you’re going—bloody hell, it’s Poofski!”
“He was touching you up, Phil!” That was Wayne Hills, a nasty little shit who did an awful lot of arse-kissing for a rabid homophobe.
“Get him!”
After a greeting like that, there was only one thing to do. Run. When it came to verbal sparring, I liked to think I gave as good as I got, but there were four of them threatening to get very physical, very fast, and they were all bigger than me.
So I ran.
Unfortunately, my talent for knowing where things are didn’t extend to the oncoming car that hit me square on, shattering my pelvis and breaking my leg. With hindsight, it would have been a lot less painful to stand my ground and take the beating they’d threatened. As violent thugs went, Phil and his gang were strictly minor league. The car, on the other hand, was a four-by-four. With bull bars on the front.
So I ended up missing my A levels, and I never did go back and take them. My parents were disappointed, but with my older brother a consultant oncologist and my sister a barrister, I suppose they thought on average, they’d done all right by their kids. Either that or they were worn out with the whole thing by then. My sister’s ten years older than me, my brother, twelve—I’m fairly sure my parents thought I was the menopause. I’ve never quite dared ask if they were pleased or not to find out the truth.
The plumbing thing came about more or less by chance, although once I’d thought of it, it seemed like the obvious choice. We’d had a pipe burst under the floor, and after ten minutes idly watching the plumber effing and blinding as he tried to work out where the leak was, I realised I could tell him to the inch. His comment of“Are you trying to do me out of a job, son?”got me thinking.
Anyway, as my dad always says, it’s useful having a plumber in the family. Usually, he says this right before he asks me if I’ll take a look at the drip in the shower.
(At which point I generally say,“Oh, I didn’t realise my brother was visiting, and won’t he mind me staring at him?”Family rituals—you’ve got to love them.)
I put down my mug and scratched Arthur’s chin. He leaned into me and purred—he might look like a bruiser, he might even swagger like one, but he’s just a big softy at heart. Talking of swaggering bruisers . . . Phil Morrison, a poof. Who’d have thought it?
Of course, it occurred to me, just because Dave had heard Phil was queer didn’t mean he actually was. I smiled to myself. Maybe he’d been theothersort of bent copper, and Dave had got the wrong end of the stick. Now that I could believe.
