Blood Relatives by Stevan Alcock Page A

a tissue, blew her nose and sorted out her eyes.
    ‘A couple of times. They once took me to a race meet at Wetherby. I can’t have been more than six or seven …’
    ‘Granddad always did love the horses.’
    Mother chortled. ‘I used to get sent to t’ bookies’ to fetch him home for his dinner. I wouldn’t go in, cos the bookies’ wor like the pub, a smoke-filled den of men where little girls shouldn’t be seen. So I’d wait outside ’til someone noticed me, and then someone else would shout, “Frank! Frank, yer wanted!” and Dad would appear in t’ doorway and tell me to run back home and say he’d be there in a jiffy. It wor what he always said.’
    Mother laughed again. ‘At first I used to think a jiffy wor a small car, or a horse-drawn carriage or summat, so I’d wait by t’ window for his jiffy to appear.’
    I looked out the bus window at passing suburban houses.
    Mother then recollected how Frank’s friend drove a grand old car – well, she remembered it as a grand old car. She recalled the wonderful patterns of t’ jockeys’ shirts and how t’ horses seemed to steam and how far away they seemed when they wor racing and then how near suddenly as they charged into t’ home straight and Granddad and this other man wor screaming crazily for their horse, only she didn’t know which wor their horse, and she’d tingled excitedly as the thundering of t’ hooves grew closer and louder ’til t’ horses blurred past t’ winning post right in front of her, but she felt safe cos Granddad wor holding her hand tightly and then he whisked her up and kissed her on t’ nose and said, ‘We’ve won, did you see, we’ve won!’ and the two men threw their hats in t’ air and their arms around each other and they all went to collect the winnings and Granddad bought her a toffee apple.
    She remembered how on t’ way home she wor soothed by t’ measured talk of t’ men, while she sank into t’ rear seat, stroking the ribbed leather, catching the faint whiff of t’ ashtrays in t’ car doors. She wor their shiny little girl, they’d said, and they would take her to t’ races for always and they would always win and throw their hats toward t’ sky and she would smear toffee apple around her lips and suck boiled sweets for evermore.
    I smirked. ‘And did you go again?’
    ‘No. I kicked up a right fuss ’til Gran clipped me around t’ ear and said, “Frank only took you cos I had to visit a sick relative.” But I knew that wor a fib, in the way all children know when their parents fib. Still, I worn’t going to poke that fire again.’
    She gave me a long look. I took in t’ scenery outside t’ window. I wor thinking that wor t’ way Mother and I differed. If there wor an ember, I had to poke it into life.

Now that I wor not welcome at Blandford Gardens for some reason that might have summat to do wi’ mashing up that little runt in t’ car park, Gay Lib meetings wor t’ only way to meet anyone likeminded. The measly gay pubs – the New Penny, the Wellesley Hotel side bar in Leeds, the Junction in Bradford – didn’t seem to offer up owt much, and I didn’t fancy sitting on my tod waiting to get chatted up by some lecherous old codger.
    Thank friggin’ Christ this next Gay Lib meet wor shorter. That butt-clenching politico stuff had been doing my nut. Afterward, in t’ bar downstairs, some baldy, moon-faced boy-lover wor plying me wi’ drinks and rubber-tongued talk. He cooed into my ear, ‘Sadly, your age leaves you on the upper cusp of unsuitability. If only we’d met five years ago.’
    ‘I wor twelve.’
    ‘A delicious age.’
    I slung mesen into an armchair and took in t’ room. This lot worn’t t’ freshest display of farm produce neither. As for me, it seemed I wor too old for t’ paedo, and jailbait for t’ rest. Even here some old bloke wi’ doughy cheeks and specs wor leering at me like a bladdered uncle at a wedding. Every time I looked his way he wor still