Picture Book Moss Side

He'd thought of telling the truth, you know, that a little girl had stolen the money from his shopping bag. But that wouldn't do no good. Mum would beat him anyway for being so stupid.

When James was a baby in the hospital he wouldn't cry with the other babies. If they started, he would stop, and vice versa, Mum said. Every Christmas Mum told that one, and Easter, and Whitsuntide. Whenever there was a roomful of people and the telly was off.

…He was a big boy now, not a baby or toddler. And big boys didn't cry neither, even if they wanted to.

It would be more than shame when he got home. Never mind what Mum would do. What about Dad? Was it only that evening that all he had to worry about was what time the ice-cream van was coming and whether there were enough pennies for a cornet or an ice-lolly? Before Mum had told him to get some bread and milk, butter and cornflakes and ruined his life for ever and ever amen. They would kill him when he got home. They'd break his body into little bits and put them into one of the big boxes in the entrance that was there to pack stuff away in. He'd be lucky if he was allowed to watch telly ever again. A life without telly was a life not worth living. They might just as well shoot him in the head. Or make him drink gallons of castor oil and eat a dozen Marmite sandwiches washed down by a bucket of cold Bovril. Not that it would bother them. Mum and Dad said there was no telly back home; all they had in the evenings was a nightful of fireflies and stars falling from the skies with a chorus of crickets, bullfrogs and the local steel band playing 'St Kitts at Night'. And if they were really lucky the church hall would show the latest Errol Flynn film again, even though the white blanket had a hole in the middle.

James hoped the girl who stole his money had no telly. She was scruffy enough to have no telly, buttons missing from her duffle coat, greasy hair down to her shoulder, a pale face that needed feeding. She smelt too. But that was the last thing on his mind when he first saw her. He thought she was being friendly when she came up to him and said, 'Hello'.

 This wasn't the time for shimmering streets and terraces of fruit pastilles. Cadogen Street was just a sign with a tarmac road down the middle and houses on both sides. Some had lights on, some didn't. Others had windows boarded up and the one on the corner had a red light. Any minute now it would be so dark you couldn't see anything, so it wouldn't matter if he stepped in some dog muck and scraped his shoes all over the carpet. It wouldn't matter because he'd be dead as soon as he got in. They'd know the truth right away because it was written all over his face in big print letters.

 James kicked an old tin can into the middle of the road. Normally, it would be a goal and the crowd would go mad. But they didn't because they could read too. It was still written all over his face.

 'You let a little girl steal the money, stupid.'

 James stopped suddenly as he came to the crossroads between Monton Road and Moss Lane East by the zebra crossing. The same zebra crossing where he had crossed without permission and all the cars and lorries had to stop with a screech; the same zebra crossing where the policeman had smacked him on the bum and called him a stupid boy; the same zebra crossing which had led onto Monton Road then Normanby Street then home to Cadogen Street that Tuesday afternoon for a lunch-break of egg and chips and tomato ketchup. When Mum had asked James what was the matter, he burst into tears and couldn't stop crying, even after Mum went to school to tell the teacher James was too ill for school that afternoon even though it was games. It was only a little smack. He'd had much worse than that from Mr Boyle's slipper. But the policeman wasn't a teacher, nor his Mum or Dad, and only they could hit him like that. Not a policeman.

 All of a sudden things didn't seem so bad after all. It wasn't as if there was any policeman about, not at that time of night anyway. And as Aunty Mary would say, 'It's not like anyone's died.'
   So with a hop, skip and a jump the skies came to life, a multicoloured extravaganza of pink, green and sticky back plastic. The houses became a terrace of Cadbury's milk chocolate with sugar-coated windows and candy floss curtains. He'd better run, get it over and done with. Hopefully it would be Dad that did the beating and not Mum. Mum would use anything close by, such as a broomstick or the big soup pot, whereas Dad was a good old-fashioned belt man. James would cry, of course. You had to with dad, or else he wouldn't stop. He must remember not to say I'm sorry Dad I won't do it again, because that was asking for trouble.

 'I... iii... II... geeeve... yooouuu... sommme... thhhiing... toooo... beeeeee... sorrrryyyyy... aaaaa... bbbbb... oooouuuu... ttttttt...' with a slap for each letter and full stop. He wouldn't be able to sit down for ages neither. He'd have to wash the dishes for a week and miss pocket money too. Laura and Felicia would laugh, of course, and Mum wouldn't speak to him, and Rose wouldn't know any better because she was just a toddler. And as Aunty Mary would say, 'Worse things happen at sea.'

(Forever and ever amen, pages 45 to 49)