An Autumn Crush Read Online Free PDF Page B

delved into his pocket and pulled out a few notes. ‘Go and get yourself kitted out.’
    ‘Don’t you dare take that money, Dennis,’ said Sarah, leaping to stop the transfer of funds.
    ‘It’s not for you, it’s for the bairn.’ Steve pushed the notes into Denny’s hand. ‘Go on, you take it, son. A bloke once did the same for me as I’m
doing for young Dennis,’ Steve lied, to protect Sarah’s pride. He too had been in his tracksuit until he was given the cast-off karate suit from Jim’s own son. ‘It’s
an interest-free loan. I want it back when you get your black belt, okay?’
    Steve wouldn’t take no for an answer. Sarah begrudgingly gave him an annoyed thank you. She never had been a sponger. The little she had, she had earned herself.
    Steve climbed over the adjoining fence and took a fortifying breath before trying the handle on his mum’s front door.
    She sometimes forgot to lock it – something else he worried constantly about. He pushed open the door, steeling himself for what he’d find inside. He could smell smoky grime in the
air. The central heating was on boiling, which warmed up the awful odours but didn’t blend them. They circulated around each other instead like some weird plug-in air-freshener: cigarettes,
sweat, something rotten – and yet he’d cleaned up only a couple of days ago, emptied the bins and left the place smelling half-decent.
    ‘Hello, Mum,’ said Steve tenderly, awakening her from a nap. Christine Feast was sitting upright on the sofa, swaddled in a blanket. Her eyes slowly opened and her head turned in his
direction but she viewed him with as much emotion as she would a lampstand.
    Her hair, which had been grey for as long as he could remember, was so thin these days. He wanted to brush it so it was neat around her face, but he’d tried that before and she
wouldn’t let him.
    ‘I’ve brought you some things. There’s an egg mayo sandwich here. Your favourite.’ He reached in the carrier bag and pulled out a fresh, brown bap.
    ‘I’m not hungry,’ she said. Her eyelids started falling again. She was drunk, of course. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her sober. Her body clock
didn’t work any more; she dozed for a few hours, drank, dozed again, drank some more . . . sometimes she made it to the bathroom, sometimes she didn’t.
    She told her son to sod off when he tried to clean up a bit for her; she wouldn’t let him take her to the doctor and resisted all attempts to let him lift her up from the sofa so she could
change out of her urine-soaked clothes. Social Services wouldn’t interfere and now Steve didn’t know what to do other than come around and just hope for a miracle. The shop on the
corner would not refuse her alcohol, however much Steve had begged them. Christine also paid the older kids on the estate to buy it for her.
    ‘I’m wrestling tonight,’ he said. It was as if she was in a coma and the only way to reach her was by talking normally, willing her to wake up and respond. She never did.
‘I’m the good guy. The Angel.’
    He sat with her for an hour and talked and she heard nothing. Then he put some money in her hand in the hope that she wouldn’t buy drink with it. But he knew she would.

 
Chapter 6
    As Guy, resplendent in swirling villain’s black cape and black satin shorts, cut through the cheering, jeering crowd, arthritic old pensioners sprang up, agile as
athletes, pushing to the aisles to batter him with their handbags. He ran the gauntlet, spitting and snarling, then climbed cockily through the ropes into the ring, took off his plastic crown,
ripped off his cape and handed them to the assistant’s waiting hands.
    ‘Ladies and gentlemen, tonight for your entertainment,’ began the dramatic, broad Yorkshire build-up over the PA system, ‘it’s the mad, it’s the bad, it’s the
dangerous, the one you love to hate, the one and only CRUSHER KINGSTONE,’ the name being drowned in a fresh