ANGIE BOYD'S MUM

The Angie Boyd Trilogy (1/3)

WESLEY INSTRUCTS DEAN to help him get his mattress out of the flat. He doesn’t say why. Without further discussion, the boys get the mattress out the back door, over the high wall and, one each end, they lug it up the alleyway to the garages, most of which are open concrete caves that stink of piss, inside which are porno mags with the pages pasted together, used condoms and needles scattered over the asphalt.

Angie Boyd’s Mum is there, wearing a short leather skirt, squatting in the corner. She stands up quickly, revealing a steaming puddle between her stilettos. Her red leather jacket is open, barely concealing two plastic spheres contained in a string vest. Kids at school call Angie Boyd’s Mum Cher.

“Ain’t you boys got no manners?” she squawks. “Clear off! I’m meeting a friend!”

The boys rest the mattress on their feet, but they don’t move. Angie Boyd’s Mum doesn’t budge either, just stares back at them from her heavily painted face.

Finally she says, “Ain’t you boys a bit young to be working? How old are you, fifteen?”

“Thirteen,” Dean says.

Angie Boyd’s Mum shrieks.

“What! Him too? Lurch!”

“Actually,” Dean says, “he’s twelve.”

“And three quarters!” Wesley stops sucking his thumb to interject.

“If you say so,” Angie Boyd’s Mum whispers. Then looking up to meet Wesley’s gaze, she says, “Bet you get asked all the time what the weather’s like up there, don’tcha?”

“Not by adults,” Wesley says, rolling his eyes.

“Hang on,” Angie Boyd’s Mum says, narrowing her eyes. “I know you boys. You’re in my Angie’s class. You’re Daniel Winston, I’m friends with your Uncle Bill.”

“He’s not my uncle,” Dean says. “And my name’s not—”

“He’s a fine man is what he is!” Angie Boyd’s Mum interrupts. “When’s he down next?”

Dean shrugs his shoulders.

“Missus Boyd,” Wesley says. “Get out of here will yer. We’ve got a job to do.”

“Sod off!” Angie Boyd’s Mum snaps. “Who’d’yer think yer talking to, yer cheeky git!”

Wesley sucks harder on his thumb. Sweat patches appear on his shirt.

“Please, Missus Boyd,” Dean says. “You’re giving Wesley one of his panic attacks.”

Angie Boyd’s Mum screams with amusement, composes herself and says, “Giz a fag.”

“We don’t smoke,” Dean says. “We’re kids.”

Angie Boyd’s Mum snorts.

“Yea right! Angie smokes like a Greek! I’m bloody gasping for one! How much money you got on yer?”

“We’re not gonna buy you cigarettes, Missus Boyd,” Dean says.

Angie Boyd’s Mum’s eyes look like whirlpools about to overflow. Dean feels himself being pulled into them. In Angie Boyd’s Mum’s eyes Dean sees a little girl, he sees Angie, the Angie he’s known since playschool, dressed up in adult’s clothes and thrown to the lions. He sees little Angie sitting on the kerb outside her house, crying silently into her hands, while Angie’s stepdad Phil fights with the five policemen attempting to bundle him into the van and paramedics wheel Angie’s unconscious mother out the front door and into the ambulance.

“I’ll let you see it for a fiver,” Angie Boyd’s Mum mumbles.

Dean and Wesley look at each other.

“See what?” Dean says.

“Forget it!” Angie Boyd’s Mum says. “If you’re gonna act like children!”

“We haven’t got a fiver,” Dean says. “I haven’t even got a quid for lunch.”

“Fat lot of good you are!” Angie Boyd’s Mum sneers.

“I’ve got it,” Wesley says.

Angie Boyd’s Mum looks at Wesley. She cracks a smile then wipes it from her face.  

“If you’re gonna take the piss,” she says, “you can forget it!”

Wesley pulls from his pocket a scrunched up ten-pound note and carefully unfolds it.

“I’ll need the change,” he says.

 “Ha! Good one!” Angie Boyd’s Mum says in sarcastic tone. “What change, the buttons off this jacket?”

“You said a fiver,” Wesley says. “This is ten.”

“Actually,” Angie Boyd’s Mum says, “ten’s good for the pair’a’yer to have a look.”

Wesley says he’s not interested in seeing anything Angie Boyd’s Mum has to show. But Dean does want to see it. They agree that Dean will have a look, then accompany Angie Boyd’s Mum to the shop for cigarettes and she’ll give him a fiver from the change.

The boys lean the mattress against a garage door. Dean approaches Angie Boyd’s Mum, while Wesley turns and faces the other way. Angie Boyd’s Mum puts a foot on the wall, edges up her skirt and pulls her red knickers to the side, revealing a patch of curly black hair.

“Touch it!” she orders.

Dean runs his fingertips over the fuzz, cautiously, as though petting a stray dog. It feels like Uncle Bill’s beard. Angie Boyd’s Mum grabs Dean’s wrist.

“Not there! Lower!” she growls.

She guides Dean’s hand into her, as though prodding a bee’s nest for honey, her eyes looking emptily at the clouds. Her breathing is irregular, like after a tantrum, Dean thinks.

Each time he gently pulls back his hand, Angie Boyd’s Mum squeezes tighter on his wrist, pushing into his pulse with her thumb. Dean stops resisting and pictures all the times he saw this woman staggering drunkenly along his street when he was little, slurring abuse at the kids, him included, that mocked and insulted her. The times Phil came round the house, slapped her black and blue and kicked her out onto the street in her dressing gown. More than once, from his bedroom window, Dean saw her being dragged across the grass by her hair.

It feels strange being inside another person’s body. Like he and Angie Boyd’s Mum are one. It’s warm inside a person. Wet. His wrist aches. He wonders what Angie Boyd’s Mum is thinking. Probably about taking a deep drag on that first cigarette. Or maybe she feels love. Who knows what a person thinks about when another person is inside their body.

Dean hears the whispers that follow Angie down the school corridors. Your mum’s this and soon enough you’ll be that. He thinks about how when they get to the shop, while Angie Boyd’s Mum is paying for her cigarettes, he’ll steal a bar of chocolate and give it to her.

“WHAT THE—” A man’s voice breaks the mood.

Wesley escapes over a wall. Dean too is over a different wall before the man has finished his sentence. Radio chatter crackles in the background; the man is PC Parker. Dean listens with his ear to the wall.

“Oh Julie,” PC Parker says, letting out a heavy sigh. “You can’t be doing that! That kid didn’t look older than your Angie. It’s not right, you know that. If word gets about, parents will come for you. Then they’ll come for me for turning a blind eye.”

Silence.

“Well?” PC Parker says. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

“Giz a fag, Tony,” Angie Boyd’s Mum says quietly.

There is the flick of a lighter. Then another. Two people inhaling deeply. Blowing out slowly through their noses. Dean feels the ten-pound note still in the palm of his hand. He’ll have to go to school after all. Find Angie Boyd. Return the money to its rightful owner.

Whatever Wesley has planned with the mattress will have to wait.

AI generated artwork

Thanks for reading. Maybe you’d like to read PART TWO