Kiss My Name

  Kiss My Name

  By

  Calvin Wade

  Copyright © 2013 Calvin Wade

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN : 1481951599

  ISBN-13:978-1481951593

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Two difficult years have passed since my first book, ‘Forever Is Over’, was released. In adversity, you definitely find out who your friends are. I am hugely indebted to many, many people who have helped me in various ways through troubled times. I could list several pages of people and still forget someone, but if you are reading this and you have gone out of your way to help me, I hope one day I get the opportunity to repay you for your love and support. Thank you!

  Contents

  Part One – The Uninvited Guest

  Part Two – One Of The Three (Childhood)

  Part Three – The Penny Pinchers

  Part Four – Searching For Justice

  Part Five – Old Before Our Time

  Part Six – Destiny Calling

  Part Seven – Past, Present and Future.

  Part Eight – The Return of The Penny Pinchers

  Part Nine – Making Plans for Simon

  Part Ten – Altogether Now

  Part Eleven – The Morning After The Night Before

  Part Twelve – The Uninvited Guest (reprise)

  Part One

  The Uninvited Guest

  FLO – June 2012

  This was the moment. This was the house. A modern, mid-terraced property, in the heart of suburbia. Still gripping the Ithaca double barrelled shotgun in my right hand behind my back, I pressed the doorbell and then immediately returned to my two handed grip. It sounded busy inside, looked busy too, even through the frosted glass door you could see figures moving to and fro.

  “Who’s hidden the front door key?” I heard a male voice ask. It could have been his voice, the voice of my intended victim and the anger that I had not been able to contain, rose up in me once more.

  “It’s in the kitchen!” replied a calming female voice. I knew it would not remain calm for long.

  “Whereabouts?”

  “Next to the oven.”

  After a delay, I could hear the keys jangling towards me, then being placed and turned in the lock. My grip on the shotgun tightened as the handle was pressed and the door pulled open.

  “Simon Strong,” I thought to myself, “you deserve absolutely everything that is just about to head your way.”

  The door opened. I was all set to spring my surprise, but then I looked at who was standing before me. It was a man, just. A young man, barely out of adolescence with greasy, long blond hair and wearing a T-Shirt with a lipstick stained skull emblazoned with “Bullet for my Valentine”.

  “Please tell me you are not Simon Strong,” I pleaded.

  The young man chuckled.

  “No, don’t worry, I am not the groom! Are you a work friend of Mum’s?”

  “Is your Mum marrying Simon Strong?”

  “She certainly is! Tomorrow at 1pm, he will finally make an honest woman of her!”

  “That’s what you think,” I thought, “That’s what you think!”

  “Is Simon here now? I have something for him.”

  “Not want a word with Mum?” asked Rapunzel in drag.

  “No,” I replied as sweetly as I could muster, “I really want to meet Simon Strong. I have something for him.”

  My finger gently ran along the trigger as I spoke.

  “OK,” son of Simon said tossing his locks like an 80’s rocker, “I’ll get him.”

  He disappeared behind the door, leaving it ever so slightly ajar. I heard him shout up the stairs.

  “Dad, there’s a woman here for you. Think she’s brought you a present.”

  That’d be right.

  I heard the noise of heavy feet on stairs, then the door re-opened and finally, I was confronted by the enemy.

  “What a gorgeous day!” he said with a broad smile, “hope they have the forecast right for tomorrow!”

  I looked him up and down. Simon Strong was certainly not what I had been expecting. Zara had painted a picture of an irresistible Lothario, a man that every woman would fall head over heels for. I for one was not inhaling those pheromones. This man was strange looking, almost ugly, overweight with a receding hairline, black hair with flecks of grey, reddened cheeks and wearing a paint splattered collared t-shirt and light blue jeans cut off above his knobbly knees. Not exactly Brad Pitt, more a trim Johnny Vegas.

  I needed to check it was not a case of mistaken identity.

  “You are Simon Strong?”

  “The very man!”

  His cheerfulness was grating. I must have just stared silently in disbelief.

  “Are you a friend of Nicky’s?” he said after a pause.

  My moment had arrived. This was my cue. I pulled the shotgun from behind my back and pointed both barrels at his crown jewels, one barrel each.

  “I am a friend of Zara’s, Mr.Strong!”

  I enjoyed saying, “Mr.Strong”, it made me feel like a seductive Russian spy in a Bond movie.

  Simon Strong, like the coward I already knew he was, put both his hands up in a surrender motion.

  “Whoa! Hang on a minute! Who the bloody hell is Zara?” he asked, feigning confusion.

  “Forgotten already? How convenient! It hasn’t even been a month.”

  “I don’t know any Zara’s!”

  I prodded forward towards his knackers with the tip of the gun. Simon Strong took half a step back, keeping his hands in the surrender pose.

  “Let me tell you, Zara has not forgotten you. And you know why, don’t you?”

  “NO!”

  “Because you left her a little reminder of your fumbles in the Guest House, didn’t you, Mr.Strong?”

  I could tell he was ready to confess. Simon Strong wiped the gathering beads of sweat off his forehead.

  “Can you put the gun down?”

  “No.”

  “Please put the gun down and I’ll explain exactly what happened in Blackpool.”

  “No. Turn around, Mr.Strong.”

  “What for?”

  “Just do as I say and turn around.”

  I said it coldly, like I was experienced in armed combat. I wasn’t. Inside I was trembling.

  Whether Simon Strong sensed my anxiety, I’m not sure, but he was reluctant to comply.

  “I’M NOT TURNING AROUND SO YOU CAN GUN ME DOWN IN THE BACK OF MY HEAD!”

  He was speaking louder, probably to attract the attention of everyone else within the house, but for whatever reason, no-one was coming.

  “Simon, turn around, right now or I promise you I’ll blast your bloody balls off!”

  That did the trick! He shuffled around slowly so that his back was facing me.

  “Now drop your pants!”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Simon…DROP YOUR PANTS!”

  Simon Strong was an irritating bugger. Once again he refused to do as he was told.

  “I am not dropping my pants!”

  “Yes, you are!”

  “What if one of the neighbour’s sees me?”

  “Simon, I have a double barrelled shotgun pointing at you! Believe me, what Mrs.Jones at Number 28 thinks, is the least of your concerns.”

  “Seventeen.”

  “What?”

  “Mrs.Jones lives at seventeen. She’s partially sighted. I’m not worried about her.”

  Smug git. He was making my job easier.

  “Drop those pants! I have a very itchy trigger finger and if you don’t drop those pants, this second, I’m going to scratch it.”

  Simon Strong undid the buttons of his crappy, cheap jeans to reveal some old, pastel coloured boxer shorts with a s
mall, age created hole, in the left cheek. There was no accounting for taste, but I could see no legitimate reason why anyone, let alone Zara, would be attracted to this man.

  “Happy now?” he asked.

  “No. Drop the boxer shorts too!”

  “Bloody hell! Why does everyone get so much pleasure out of humiliating me?” he moaned.

  “What comes around, goes around,” I replied, feeling quite proud of my spontaneous intellect, “now drop ‘em!”

  “I swear on my children’s lives I have never met anyone called Zara!”

  Liar!

  “Drop ‘em NOW!”

  Finally, the boxer shorts came down to his ankles. A hairy, unattractive, dimply bottom was revealed.

  “Zara, you stupid fool!” I thought to myself. It would be like mating with a sasquatch.

  I started to realise I was taking too long. Standing in the middle of a terraced block pointing a shotgun would draw people’s attention to me like a compass drawn to magnetic north. I was here to accomplish a mission and now was the time to act. I was primed and ready to fire when I looked again at the disgusting, hairy backside.

  “What the hell is that?” I questioned.

  “What?”

  “That tattoo, on your arse.”

  “Long story.”

  “Ironic,” I thought, “how ironic!”

  I would genuinely have loved to hear that long story, but I had deliberated too long. This man did not deserve a second chance. I took aim at that tattooed backside, closed my eyes, pulled my sweaty finger back onto the trigger and fired.

  Part Two

  One of The Three

  (Childhood)

  SIMON – July 1983.

  I unzipped the zip and stuck my head in the tent. The first thing that hit me was the smell. The familiar grassy smell of summer. Midnight feasts of Swizzles, Pontefract cakes and Tizer, just for Joey Neill and me. Summer had arrived and we were keen to repeat the previous year’s routine, spending several summer nights camping in his back garden or mine, preferably Joey’s though as they had a four man tent and ours was only two man. You couldn’t stand up in ours.

  Joey’s Mum and Dad were parents who wanted their children to have fun growing up. Joey was at least ten years younger than his two sisters, Joanne and Sharon, so his Mum and Dad were not laying down the law all the time like mine. When we stayed at Joey’s, his parents would always let us watch “Hammer House Of Horror”, in his house, then we would grab a torch and follow the pathway along his garden to the tent. Our tent. No-one ever stayed in that tent other than Joey and me. If he had invited any other kids over, I would have seen it as a sign of betrayal.

  Joey Neill lived in a massive old detached house, that was probably built by Noah just after he’d come back from his travels in the Ark. His Dad was a barrister, his Mum some sort of solicitor too. My Dad cleaned their windows. It was his favourite job, three pounds he got, just for that one house. I loved staying around there, we would generally spend a couple of nights a week in his tent, one in ours and the other four nights of the week, we would recover! After “Hammer House of Horror” (or occasionally “Tales Of The Unexpected” with its creepy music), we would stuff our faces with sweets and Tizer in the tent, often resulting in a trek out to the flower beds in the middle of the night, for a much needed wee. The most endearing memory of a childhood spent in Joey Neill’s tent though, was not the sweets, nor “Hammer House Of Horror”, the endearing memory was the music. For us, 1982 had been the summer of “Adam & The Ants” but 1983, was the year of “Wham!”

  This particular night, the first camping night of 1983, Mum had needed me to take our Colin to Jiu-Jitsu at the Community Centre and then walk him home after he had spent an hour grabbing other kids dressing gowns and trying to trip them up. Colin was only seven at the time and Mum and Dad had arranged to have a drink at Tommy and Sheila’s next door, so I was only allowed to Joey’s if I looked after our Colin first. I dropped him back at Tommy and Sheila’s, Dad looked pissed on Pernod, so it was Uncle Tommy that lifted me over the fence into our back garden. I gathered up my pillow, my toothbrush and my pyjamas from ours, stuffed them in a Kwik Save plastic and then ran around to Joey’s as fast as my little legs would take me. Before even knocking on the door, I ran straight to the tent to throw my bag in there. My adrenalin was pumping as I unzipped that tent. A new summer for old adventures had begun.

  The second thing that hit me, after the familiar smell, was the noise. The noise of a rewinding tape recorder and then the heavy, clunking sound of someone pressing the ‘Stop’ button. I saw those small fingers, then my eyes followed a trail up the arm to the shoulder blade, then across to the neck and up to the head. It was a bloody girl!

  “Who are you?” she asked

  “Why are you in our tent?”

  Nicky was a tiny thing. Skinny with brown hair in bunches and pink pyjamas. She looked much younger than Joey and me, we were ten, Nicky must have been six, seven at the most.

  “I was playing with my Tiny Tears.”

  “But why here? In our tent.”

  “My Mummy’s ill. Daddy’s at hospital, so he left me here, with friends.”

  I found it amusing that she still referred to her parents as Mummy and Daddy. Such a youngster’s thing to do! I was no longer angry with her though. Her ‘Mummy’ was ill, that wasn’t her fault. No doubt she needed some cheering up.

  “Do you like ‘WHAM!’?” I asked.

  Nicky looked perplexed.

  “ ‘Wham!’?”

  “That tape,” I pointed at the recorder, “that’s ‘WHAM!’, wait until I go and get Joey, we’ll show you.

  Joey and I were stood side by side in the middle of the tent. Nicky was sat up in her sleeping bag enthralled. We had matching white T-shirts on and black leather jackets.

  “Right Nicky! Press play!” Joey commanded.

  Nicky pressed the button and the tinny sound of ‘WHAM! Rap’ kicked in through those cheap speakers. We had synchronised a few moves which we’d copied from Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael’s Top Of The Pops appearance. It involved a lot of clapping, clicking, spinning and arms pointing to the sky. We thought we were the coolest kids that had ever lived. The song was a long one, about six minutes long, but we managed to keep our momentum going. We danced, pranced and pointed with such vigour that by the time it was over, we were exhausted! We collapsed onto the groundsheet trying to get our breath back.

  “You two are really good!” Nicky said, “I mean it was really, really ace. You know what you should do, you should write a letter to ‘Why Don’t You?’, they are always looking for kids who can do things! You two are going to be famous, really famous, like Kajagoogoo!”

  “Or Wham!” Joey suggested excitedly, “Me and Simon could be the next Wham!”

  “You’ll need a name!”

  “Simon & The Stray Dog!” I suggested.

  “Joey & The Jackass” Joey countered.

  “You need to have a cool name like that of a toy or something. The Hacky Sacks or The Boom Boxers or something like that,” Nicky suggested.

  “The Boom Boxers! I like that,” I said smiling at Nicky.

  “I can see it now,” Nicky continued, “David ‘Kid’ Jensen saying, ‘and at this week’s Number One, we have The Boom Boxers with ‘Nicky, we love you!’”

  “As if!” Joey replied, “our song would be called ‘Down with the Government’ or ‘Hand over your jewels, Queen!’ or something like that.”

  Massaging the egos of two ten year old boys is a great way to their heart. I had not met Nicky before that night, but it didn’t take me long to decide that she was a cool kid, especially for a girl. We stayed up past midnight, stuffing our faces with fizzy drinks and sugary sweets, before sleep overcame us in the early hours.

  A couple of hours later, I woke to the sensation of being shaken. I opened my eyes and Nicky was looking down at me, she looked petrified.

  “What’s the matter?” I sleepily asked.
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br />   “Listen,” Nicky said, “someone’s outside.”

  There was no time to panic. Before my body truly woke up, we heard the zip being pulled down and torchlight breaking through, bouncing around the tent like a demented moth. There was a whisper from an adult female voice.

  “Nicky! Nicky!”

  A head poked in. It was Mrs.Neill. She shone the light on Joey first, who was still fast asleep, with his head back and mouth open, several black fillings evidence of too many midnight feasts. The torchlight then moved around to Nicky and me, sat next to each other in our sleeping bags, both wondering why we were being invaded.

  “Nicky, love,” said Mrs.Neill in calm, sympathetic tones. She had always been one of those Mums who knew naturally how to strike the right balance between being friendly and interested in you and giving you space to do your own thing.

  “Nicky, you are going to have to gather your things together, love and come with me.”

  “Why Auntie Gill?”

  “Your Dad has just phoned from the hospital, love. It’s your Mum. She is very, very sick. He thinks it would be a good idea for me to take you over there. It might be time to say goodbye to your Mum.”

  In silence, without tears or theatrics, Nicky gathered her things together and disappeared with Joey’s Mum, into the darkness. The only sounds that were made were the zipping of the tent and then minutes later, a car engine started before moving slowly away along the Neill’s path.

  The following morning, after abandoning the tent for the warmth of the house, Joey and I sat in the kitchen eating cereal. Joey’s Dad came and sat with us to relate the news that Nicky’s Mum had sadly passed away during the night. She was in heaven now, he said, all the pain that she had had to put up with over the last two years had now gone. She would be watching over Nicky like an angel, he explained. Joey cried his way through his Rice Krispies and despite not knowing her, I joined in. Death and Nicky Moyes had both been introduced into my life for the first time that summer and as time passed by, neither would ever be far away.