Lay Baby , livre ebook

Eyewear Publishing - V.A Sola Smith

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128 pages

English

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Description

Britpop has burst its bubble, Cool Britannia has hit its come down and the Asbo Generation have come of age. It is 2004 in the North West of England. Fifteen years old, Lay Baby has nine months before school ends, before her mother signs the estrangement papers, before her name gets dropped into the council house raffle barrel and before the excuse 'I'm a kid' expires as abruptly as a child's library card. Left the blank journal of a friend after his death, Lay Baby begins writing.

Informations

Publié par	Eyewear Publishing
Date de parution	31 mars 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781839782152
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published in 2020 by Black Spring Press Group Suite 333, 19-21 Crawford Street London, W1H 1PJ United Kingdom
Graphic design by Edwin Smet
Author photograph by Neil Reid
Cover image by Neil Reid
Printed in England by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
All rights reserved
2020 V.A. Sola Smith
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Set in Bembo 13 / 17 pt
ISBN 978-1-839782-15-2
WWW.EYEWEARPUBLISHING.COM

CONTENTS
Dramatis Personae
Lay Baby
Acknowledgement
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
LAYLA / LAY BABY - the narrator
MUM / MS DINSDALE - Layla s and Cal s mother and Dom s step-mother
TERRY - Layla s mum s boyfriend
DOMINIC / DOM - Layla s elder brother (estranged)
CALEB / CAL - Layla s eldest brother and LA Sarah s partner
JIM / JIMMY - Layla s ex and Bull s younger brother (deceased)
BULL - Jim s elder brother, Laura K s ex and one of Caleb s closest friends
LAURA K - Bull s partner and La s best friend (deceased)
LA SARAH / LA - Cal s partner and Clit s and Maggie s housemate
CLIT - Maggie s partner and LA Sarah s housemate
MAGGIE / MAG - Clit s partner and LA Sarah s housemate
MISS - Layla s closest friend, fellow student at Wayside School, Dave s daughter and Jasper s twin sister
JASPER / JAZZ - Miss s twin brother, Dave s son and member of the Gallows Hill 353
DAVE - Miss s and Jasper s mother and Pru s partner
PRU - Dave s partner
SANAA - toddler daughter of Dave s and Pru s next door neighbours
LYNN GREEN - leader of the Lancashire Education Medical Service
ANDREW - Layla s classmate and fellow Student at Wayside School
RYAN - Layla s classmate and fellow Student at Wayside School
HAZEL - Layla s classmate and fellow Student at Wayside School
DANNY - Layla s classmate and fellow Student at Wayside School
NICOLE - Layla s classmate and fellow Student at Wayside School
LEA - teacher at Wayside School
CAROL -teacher at Wayside School
CHRIS - teacher at Wayside School
MR RAMSEY - substitute teacher at Wayside School
BRENDA - teaching assistant at Wayside School
MRS MCQUAIDE - head teacher at Wayside School
PETER - Layla s social worker
CRUSTY DON - owner of The Hammer and Sink Nightclub
ANNETTE / NETTY - barmaid at The Hammer and Nightclub
BRIAN - drives the free minibus to The Hammer and Sink Nightclub
FLOWER - Polly s partner and later Biddy s partner
POLLY - Flower s partner and Sam s closest friend and classmate
SAM / SAMMY DOLL - Polly s closest friend and classmate
BIDDY - Kyle s ex and DM s mother
DM - Kyle and Biddy s toddler son
ABERDENIE JEANIE / AJ - Biddy s closest friend
TRIX - friend of Layla s and fellow dreg
RICH / RICHIE - friend of Trix, Richie s parents once fostered Trix
STEVIE - Layla s childhood friend and classmate, now a drug dealer and a leader of the Aldgate 212
BOY - former Range Estate 608 member turned drug dealer and contact of Stevie s
MONICA / MON - Layla s Mum s closest friend and neighbour and mother of Alastair and Benny
ALASTAIR - Mon s son, Benny s older brother and a founding member of the Dacrelands 414
BENNY - Mon s son and Alastair s younger brother
JOSEPHINE / THE MAD WOMAN AT NUMBER NINETEEN - Layla s Mum s neighbour
MARY / THE WHITE KEYRING QUEEN - neighbour of Layla s father (deceased)
DEANO - childhood friend of Layla s and Dom s and shotter for Mary, the white keyring queen
KIM LOVEDAY - head of A levels at Lancaster College
I used to be able to feel Jim s stare. That vibe, like when someone is watching you? I still get that feeling sometimes. I ll be really into a book or toking with the guys or whatever, then I ll just feel it. Like folk who have limbs amputated get phantom pains. You see it at Pok, where s there s plenty of crusties and smackheads with stumps where their arms, fingers, toes, a leg or two, have gotten gangrenous and had to be lopped off. An amputee will go to scratch an itch only to remember, or rediscover, they ain t got no leg for it to have an itch. Some are so fucked off their nut they just carry on scratching.
I don t. I never scratch the itch. As long as the itch is there, I can go on feeling it. Feeling like Jim s there, grinning back at me like a fucking smartarse.
It were a book of Philip Larkin s poems, the first book I asked to cadge from him. And the first time Jim floored me with that fucking grin. The next day, at the Steps, Jim snuck up behind me, placed his hands over my eyes so tight I couldn t prise them off my face or break out of his arms and wheeled me around, whispering right in my ear as I struggled and failed to free myself.
- I m gonna take you to the best fucking place in the whole wide world. Better than a come up. Better than sex. Better than Christmas morning. Better than that first smoke of the day. Better even than Etihad Stadium. I m gonna change your life, Lay Baby.
I remember Jim letting me go so I could finally see what I was facing, and my shoulders dropping.
- Lancaster Library?
Jim loved libraries. The idea of there being a place in every city where you could go and sit, be warm and dry, and pull books from shelves like levers in to secret worlds. Somewhere you didn t need money or status or ID or even to become a member to enter.
I already had a library card. My mum got my brothers, Cal and Dom, and me our own library cards and used to walk us there every Sunday. Cal got too old to want to tag along pretty quick, and Dom were only really interested in terrorising the library hamsters, Enid and Blyton, but I took out eight books - maximum on a child library card - every week, until the divorce.
Mum never read to us that I can remember, but she d wait for hours, literally, while I picked books and then while the librarian let me stamp each book out. Then she would carry them all home for me. She had a cotton tote bag she kept rolled up in her handbag just for when we went to the library. She bought it at a carboot sale and nailed a hook in to my old bedroom door to hang it from like a stocking always full of books.
Sometimes, at night, Cal would creep in to my bedroom with his hand over Dom s mouth to stop him from calling my name in the dark and waking our parents. They d squeeze into my single bed and Cal would read us book after book from the bag till me and Dom fell asleep. Cal used to change the names of characters to mine and his and Dom s; us having adventures or solving crimes or casting spells. Dad never featured, maybe cause he weren t Caleb s dad. Cal only ever snuck our mum into the story if the book had a witch in it. We d all laugh, our faces pushed into the duvet so Mum didn t hear us and know we were still awake.
I didn t even remember any of that till I were telling Jim about it and that if he ever wrecked my library card, I d wreck his face. He d tried to snap my library card in two. Jim said you couldn t trust a person to return library books on time, and you can t trust any person who does returns library books on time. But he never tried to snap my library card again. I ve still got the card, though I never use it no more, except to rack lines.
Jim would distract the staff so I could sneak out books we could ve checked out for free just so we weren t on no time limit to return them. We also snuck out cassettes, which made sense; you ve to pay to borrow music.
We d head back to Jim s brother, Bull s place or to Pok and rifle through our loot. Jim would read aloud poems or passages from the books. I d play him my poets - Lou Reed, Jim Carroll, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave on Cal s old cassette Walkman. When we d bored of them or moved on to sommet new, we d sneak the books and cassettes back on to the shelves.
I used to be mad on the library, but I d never thought about the idea of what a library is, what a library really is, until Jim made me face it.
The way they see it, all I ve got to do is be good for nine months, until I turn sixteen, until I m free from school and guardians and binned into the council-housing-raffle-barrel. The way I see it, well, I don t see it. And that, they tell me, is the problem.
*
My mum threw me out again on Friday. As she pushed me over the front step, I tried to grab a key from the rack on the hallway wall. The door slammed straight on my hand.
The doctor tells me I ve fractured the scaphoid, this little nub of bone located in the anatomical snuffbox. The way he tells it, four hours after waiting around in A E, it suddenly becomes urgent to minimise the risk of avascular necrosis somewhere between the proximal and distal borders.
Translated: I buggered my right hand up and now the whole thing is in plaster for a fortnight.
*
Always the same routine. Sam s mum pretends not to be listening in the hallway. Pretending I don t know Sam s mum is listening in the hallway, I punch in my mum s number on the cordless in the living room, and push dial . My mum picks up the phone, recognises my voice and hangs up. I give the line a moment to clear. At the sound of the dial tone, I say:
- Yeah, Mum, no worries. I m at Sam s place Yeah, y know, Sam. Do you want me to put her mum on? OK. Thanks Yeah, I won t be any trouble Bye, then
I replace the handset and make for the stairs. Meanwhile, Sam s mum makes for the lounge to check the last number dialled, in case I faked the call.
Sam s room is in the attic. After climbing this little ladder you have