Read Utterly Monkey for Free Online Page B

pinstriped shirt. Her hair was braided and tied back. Her long legs and narrow hips made her seem taller than she was and it was only her breasts that prevented her body from appearing purely athletic. Her face had something reserved and angry about it. She was closed to the general public. Danny grinned.
    ‘Something amusing?’ A posh bone-dry voice.
    ‘No. I’m smiling in a friendly manner. It’s the Monks & Turner spirit. You’re Ellen?’
    ‘And you’re the man with too much work.’
    ‘I’m one of them. Please. Come in, come in. Sit down. Now, how are things?’ And thus we do the evil we have done to us.

EARLY MORNING AGAIN
    Two miles and forty-seven yards away, Geordie was skinning up a morning spliff to lessen the stress of Trisha. Two men were arguing over an enormously fat girl who was dressed from head to foot in Adidas. The two men were both at least three times her age, which appeared to be around thirteen. Man One and Man Two would periodically stand up and shout at each other and then sit down. Like little figures wheeled out on the chime of a fancy wooden clock, they’d wave their arms, clang around for a while and retreat. The fat girl’s brown hair was scraped up away from her face and sat in a tuft on the top of her scalp, like the green parts of a pineapple. It was becoming apparent that Man Two was the girl’s father and that Man One drove her school bus. It was also becoming apparent that Man One had fathered Pineapple’s baby. This, the offspring of Pineapple andbus driver, was now being brought on stage for some kind of curtain call. It was a pink-faced wailing package and nobody wanted to hold it.
    Geordie took the last hot drag on his spliff, and stubbed it out, crooking it like a baby finger. This was interesting. He was alone in Danny’s flat. He stood up. He was wearing only pale blue creased boxers. He lifted his rucksack from the foot of the sofa and emptied the contents out onto the sleeping bag. He replaced everything bar one white plastic bag. He set about counting the cash it contained. Geordie had not left home empty-handed.
    The morning of his going he’d been fit to burst with worries about what to take and where to go and how to get. The usual going concerns. He’d rang Janice at work and asked her to meet him in the old children’s playground over in Kildrum. It was out of town and across the road from a housing estate that was being emptied out, house by house, to swankier estates. The windows on some houses were boarded up and some were flung open on the warm summer sky. The place had the look of an advent calendar. Janice had taken her lunch hour early from the chemists and driven out in her wee red Fiesta. Geordie watched her carefully and clumsily reverse the car into one of the outlined spaces in the car park, even though it was completely empty. She sauntered up to him. Tight scant denim skirt, white trainers, a navy V-neck top and a long open maroon cardigan. Her hair was tied back and Geordie fancied she’d been crying or maybe it was hay fever. She looked good, great even, if you forgave the wonky eye, and Geordie did, as he held her waist and kissed the soft swell of the top of her breasts.
    ‘Jan, I have to disappear. You know your fucking brother has put the word out on me.’
    ‘I heard Brewster talking about it in the kitchen. Geordie, I don’t know what to say. It’s my fault. I tried to talk to Greer but he wasn’t having any of it. And Da said to shut up or he’ll turf me out. Should I come? Should I come with you? Where are you going?’
    Good old Janice, Geordie thought. Good old stupid sexy Janice, with her little waist and little feet and big lips.
    ‘Better not, at least not yet. I’ll try and send you a message at Martin’s when I get something sorted. I don’t know where I’m going, to be honest Jan. And I’ve no cash. I was thinking of Australia but there’s visas and stuff to be sorted out and I’ll have to do that in England.