The Year of the Ladybird by Graham Joyce Read Free Book Online

had a run at your wife?’
    ‘Go on, clear off,’ Pinky shouted at him. ‘Terri, you get on with your work. We’ve got a fucking show to run around here.’
    Colin bared his teeth, put his head down and left.
    Meanwhile Tony had helped Luca to his feet. Two of the dancers were fussing around him, dusting him down. ‘It’s finish,’ the Italian was saying. ‘It’s finish
here.’
    ‘Come on, old son,’ Tony said, ‘let’s get you backstage and straightened up.’
    ‘No I can’t. It’s no possible. It’s finish.’
    ‘Look,’ Tony said, ‘you know we all worship you, Luca. Never mind that fucking idiot. We all love you. You know that.’
    Terri burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry, Luca. I’m so sorry!’
    Luca suddenly recovered his composure. ‘My darling, was it you? Or was it him?’ He stepped over to Terri and took her hand, bent his head and pressed his lips to her trembling
fingers. Then with a sad smile he released her hand. ‘Yes. Si. Si. We have a show, no? We have a show.’ He turned and skipped up the steps and onto the stage to disappear behind the
wings, followed by Tony and the dancers, all still babbling incredulity at the event.
    I was left out front with Pinky. Terri switched on the hoover and moved away from us. ‘I saw it all,’ I said.
    Pinky sniffed. ‘Was he?’
    ‘Was he what?’
    He nodded at Terri. ‘Was Luca having a sniff?’
    ‘Christ, no. Luca was just telling her what a great voice she has. That’s all it was. Unless that constitutes “having a sniff”.’
    Pinky turned away from me and followed the others up the steps onto the stage. He puffed on his unlit cigar. ‘Sometimes it does,’ he said, ‘sometimes it
doesn’t.’
    I was left with Terri as she trawled up and down the aisles with the hoover. I wanted to go but then again, I didn’t. I watched her work as if nothing had just happened, and I knew she was
aware of me watching her. It was ridiculous. She was beautiful. It didn’t seem possible that she had become yoked to a man like that, someone twice her age, someone who was a beast and who
could offer nothing but raw violence and meanness and a life of low instinct.
    Very slowly she worked her way back towards me with the vacuum cleaner, bringing the thing close to where I was standing. I wondered if I was supposed to lift my feet like I’d seen my dad
do for my mum, but when the machine was almost touching my shoe she switched it off. The new quiet pulsed in the empty auditorium. A stray lock of hair had fallen across her face and she pretended
to blow it out of her eye but I knew it was a breath of relief. She gave me a deep, searching look. Then she parted her lips and mouthed one single, painful word.
    She didn’t even have to say it.

 
     
     
     
4
To fight the savage foe, although
     
     
     
     
    The following morning I got to find out who I was billeted with. It turned out to be the missing Greencoat, a cheerfully psychotic Mancunian chain-smoker called Nobby. After
another bad night I was actually sleeping well one morning, only to be awoken when his key hit the lock from the other side of the door.
    If he was surprised to encounter a new room-mate he didn’t show it. He stood over me in a Greencoat outfit of whites or rather off-whites – and a blazer identical to mine. ‘Are
you with us, son? It’s a brand new day!’
    I blinked up at him from my pit. He was at least ten years my senior. His hair shook in its tight perm of dark curls streaked grey at the temples. The tremor was from an endless nervous energy
that would never – I was about to discover – allow him to be still.
    ‘You the new Greencoat then? Shake a leg and I’ll walk down with you. Though you can have this shithole to yourself cos I’m never here how the fuck they expect two grown men to
sleep side by side in this depressed hen coop for plucked chickens I’ll never know are you up yet? Come on, son, come on.’
    ‘I’ll get a shower,’ I muttered. I