Oxblood by Tom Benn

Author:Tom Benn
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526639493
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2022-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

Under a brass-necklace sun they caught the bus from Civic. That brass-necklace sun scored the orange and white paint and Nedra shooed ahead some of her seven to keep the bus from going without her. Monday’s queue of queerfolk – bark-skinned elders dressed for sea or snow: ancient matriarchs of other denominations; unwashed bovver boys of precious hairdos and jewellery. . . the queue was shrinking faster than her toddle. A quickstep at sixty-two and fat as fruit. She was only breathless once she sat down. With her flock seated and counted for. Eight commemorative return tickets to Heaton Park for the papal visit. She shut her purse.

Susie-Ann watched her – sweetly beside her with Joey on her knee, creasing her First Communion dress. Nedra took him and pulled smooth Susie-Ann’s frock.

After climbing Princess Road to town:

‘Look!’ Roger said, two benches in front with Kevin.

Nedra squinted at the grubby window: a helicopter low under cleanest high Heaven. It looked like a dangerous insect. Kevin, Roger and Joey followed it with their fingers to the glass. She blinked at it and caught sunspots.

‘It was Him,’ Kevin said.

They’d heard on Piccadilly Radio that the Pope would travel by helicopter and for a moment she wondered.

‘Was it Jesus?’ Joey whispered.

‘Don’t talk daft.’

‘The Pope knows Jesus,’ Susie-Ann said.

‘He’s. . . Jesus’s dad,’ Roger said.

‘That’s Joseph,’ Kevin said.

‘That’s God,’ Nedra said.

‘Who’s the Pope’s dad?’ asked Susie-Ann.

‘He’s not got one,’ Nedra said.

Joey tipped to see her, tom-tom-ing her gammon arm which barred him like a seatbelt. ‘Like Kelly and Jan.’

‘Like you and your Gene now and all,’ Jan said, then sat round. But Kelly touched her with a look and Jan turned, to him, then to Joey, then spoke again, softer:

‘Oi, mate – don’t be getting upset. Yours’ll be home before you know it. Ours won’t.’

‘He’s with Jesus.’

‘That’s right, love.’ Nedra matched his whisper.

Joey pushed to the window, chasing Heaven or helicopters, crawling over Susie-Ann for purchase. Nedra retrieved him and jogged him on her knees but he wouldn’t be still until a kick juddered the back of their seat.

‘Now be good,’ Gene Harvey said, twitching behind them, sat by himself. A torrential nosebleed spotting his blue collar shirt and his dad’s tie.

The shock of him.

All she could do was pass Joey up to Kelly and root in her handbag for tissues.

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