she tastes. He’s practically forgotten all about the tissues, and all. Shuddering, Johnnie almost starts getting a slight stiffy as him and Nanna load the shopping on the conveyor belt, but to avoid embarrassment he imagines Nanna all spread-eagled in one of those 50+ magazines you get in Premier, and it soon subsides. It’s strange to think how many newsagents stock that kind of senile smut, but who actually has the nerve to step up to the counter and buy it? Johnnie wonders if, when his granddad was alive, did he prefer to see naked sixty-year-olds, or still get a kick out of shaven, supple Just Eighteens? Sweating, him and Nanna cram all the chunky bags into his Nissan Sunny out in the car park, then the two of them whittle off down the sunny street-stripe to Nanna’s pad, Johnnie driving carefully because he doesn’t want to worry his Nanna and he doesn’t want to kill her either. On the way down Normanby Road, passing those loopy houses with the curvy brown roofies like futuristic farm stables, Nanna puts her hand on Johnnie’s knee and asks softly, ‘Now, love, have you seen your mother recently? You know she’s going through a bit of a bad patch, and I’m sure she’d love to see you.’ Johnnie sighs silently, feeling a bit unnerved by the granny-grip on his leg and the fact she’s brought up his mam while he’s manoeuvring that tricky crossroad down by the post office. Johnnie’s mam’s been suffering a bit of depression since she fell headfirst into the menopause, fluttering violently from hibernating in her dark bedroom for weeks on end to lashing out at family members like a prickly porcupine. She’s never liked the idea of her sons (Barrie, Johnnie and Robbie) growing up to be failures, and with Robbie being the only one at home now (Barrie flew the nest to set up an unsuccessful twenty-four-hour booze delivery service with his ex-missus, and Tony the Dad goes off-shore for periods of three months on, one month off at the oil rigs), he gets most of the spines. Johnnie bites his lip as he swerves down curvy Windsor Road, nodding in certain places while his Nanna says, ‘You see, you don’t want your Robbie getting an earful every time he comes home late, gets his PE kit mucky, that sort of thing. She didn’t even let him see his new girlfriend the other night! She’s just lonely mind – I try my best to see her, but it’s tricky with me not being so mobile now …’ Once they reach Nanna’s, Johnnie lugs all the shopping into her kitchen, saying to her, ‘I dunno, it’s just she just kicks off at me. You know how hard it is finding a job round here, Nanna; it’s rock hard. And I’m really trying; I really am, but last time I went round she just started crying and chucked the plates at me.’ Johnnie does want to see her, but it’s the heartbreak of telling your mam you’re pathetic and penniless and can’t find a job (when in fact you’re pathetic and penniless and punt pills and pilfer people) that puts him off. Johnnie coming round with a big Smiley Face when all he does in life is sell SmileyFaces to idiots is only going to depress her even more. But Johnnie promises his Nanna he’ll give it a go, and she smiles and delves into her purse and hands him a crisp new fiver, to help tide him over. Johnnie kisses her goodbye and walks through her lovely lilac garden, chuffed about the money. He beeps the horn while Nanna waves cheery at the window, gently pulling off the drive then whacking his foot down once he’s completely out of view. If only his mam and Nanna knew how talented he is in the field of criminal behaviour! It’s not easy being a failure, you know. Over the years Johnnie’s really honed his craft; sometimes he makes more money drug-dealing when he doesn’t even have any drugs on him. Genius! Some of his favourite tricks of the trade range from ‘hit-and-run’ (where you literally hit and run away from someone who’s just given you money/unveiled their wallet),
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