The Prodigal: Valley Park Series 1 Read online

  THE PRODIGAL

  Nicky Black

  Published by Nicky Black.

  Copyright © 2015 Nicky Black

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction inspired by the author's experiences. Any similarity of these names to the names of any living person is purely coincidental.

  The publisher can be contacted at [email protected]

  For my big brothers, Alan and Trevor

  Taken from us too early

  Be at peace

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Massive thanks to everyone who has supported the effort to get this book to print: to everyone who’s encouraged me and motivated me to keep going.

  In particular, thanks to Carolyn Reynolds, previously a producer at Granada TV, who believed in the story even though it never made it to the screen. To my critical friends and readers: Sarah Bidder, Lynn Clarke, Jackie Cotton and Rossana Leal. To Olivia Chapman from New Writing North for supporting the first structural edit, and Claire Malcolm for giving me my first opportunity to write for the Live Theatre. To Laura Lindow for directing those pieces so brilliantly and encouraging me to keep writing.

  Thanks to all the loyal Twitter and Facebook followers who have been so patient and positive. You’re all brilliant!

  Finally, of course, to my family, friends and partner, without whom I wouldn’t have eaten once I got engrossed.

  The Prodigal

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  17 October 1977 was the day that changed everything: the day after an immense storm ripped through the north-east of England. Lee’s father, Frank, had spent much of the evening before leaning on the windowsill, listening to the telephone cable slapping at the drainpipe. It was wreaking terrible havoc, but for Frank it meant one thing: overtime, and with Christmas not far off, the extra money was welcome. He was the most experienced of the crew by far, so he would take on the dangerous jobs, the jobs that got his adrenalin pumping and made him feel like he could do anything.

  Frank was a power lineman, a journeyman. He lived for the thrill of the fifty-five footers, shimmying up the pole like a nimble monkey so people could get their lights and their tellies back on. He’d choose a couple of the lads from Gateshead to join him, good groundsmen with their heads screwed on.

  Sure enough, the message had arrived at 8.30 p.m. Hexham’s down, Frankie, and half of Ponteland. His wife frowned at the TV. Tomorrow was his birthday and he guessed she had a special tea in mind. But no matter, he was to report at 7.30 a.m. the next day for the early shift. Frank would be forty years old and he felt every year of it.

  As dawn broke the next morning, nine-year-old Lee stood at the bedroom window and watched his father stride down the path. His mother, Jackie, stood at the front door, her short, bleached hair plastered to one side. She’d put a quarter-bottle of Scotch in Frank’s lunch box – it could get cold all that way up, and it was a special birthday after all. She pulled her dressing gown together at the neck and waved her Regal King Size at him.

  17 October 1977 was the last time Lee saw his father stride away from their house like a man with a purpose. This was the day Frank Jamieson fell from thirty-five feet, his belt not fastened properly, refusing the extra harness in the high winds so he could get at the junction easier with his freezing hands. People went without their tellies and their LPs for a few more hours that day, the transformer lying in a grey puddle in the street next to a twitching Frank who could feel his cold hands but little else.

  The groundsmen from Gateshead confirmed at the enquiry that they’d all taken a drink at lunchtime, a couple of pints in the Rat in Hexham on account of it being Frankie’s birthday, and the rest from Jackie’s quarter-bottle. No compensation due. Gross negligence the cause: next case please. This was the day that the mortgage on the three-bedroom terrace in Kenton stopped being paid. The day his father changed from the strong, silent type to the sullen, bitter type, his back and his spirit broken. The day his mother changed from liking a drink in Turners on a Friday night with her pals, to liking a drink any time of the day and often alone.

  Within months the whole family had moved into Lee’s grandfather’s two-bedroom flat in the city’s West End which they shared with five cats. It stank of piss – feline and human. But his mother rejected house after house from the Council, stubbornly refusing to move her family onto some sink estate riddled with roaming dogs and abandoned shopping trolleys. Six months later, however, with Lee relentlessly bullied because of the stench coming off him, his parents were left with no choice – they moved into 18 Elm Street on Valley Park Estate.

  There were plenty of empty houses on Valley Park.

  ONE

  1999

  Lee dragged himself out of a deep sleep as the train steward announced that the next station stop would be Newcastle. He peered through a misty window that had the word twat etched deeply into it. There was a knot in his throat. Fear, nerves or anticipation: he couldn’t tell.

  He dug into his pocket to check how much cash he had for a taxi. As he opened his wallet his eyes fell on the small, creased picture of a dimple-cheeked child of about seven. Grinning. Toothless. Gorgeous. The child he’d been denied. It was the only picture Debbie had sent him – must be eight years ago now. He didn’t blame Debbie, not really, but she could have told him. She could have found a way to tell him she’d had the baby and not got rid of it like everyone wanted. Instead, he had to find out years later from Hoots, his old drinking pal, so-named because of his Scottishness and love of battered haggis.

  ‘What, she never telt ye? Aboot the bairn and that?’ Hoots had come to London to look for labouring work. But one nip on the arse from a skinny rent boy at King’s Cross and he was in a cell awaiting assault charges. Lee, a beat officer fresh out of training, had brought him a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. Christ, they’d laughed. The things they’d got up to: Jesus. Lee had laughed long and loud until he’d learned of the baby – seven years after the fact. Louise she’d called her. She would be fifteen now, a young woman. A young woman he’d been denied.

  As the train slowly crossed the water approaching Newcastle, he looked with aching nostalgia at the Tyne Bridge. It frowned at him, green and resplendent. He searched beyond the bridge, not at the derelict warehouses and breakers’ yards he was expecting, but at a gleaming river, light bouncing off the water from the windows of smart offices and flats which now hugged the Tyne. Couples strolled hand in hand down the quayside; people tied their bicycles to elegant lampposts. He twisted awkwardly in his seat to get a last glimpse of the scene before the train was swallowed up by the black tunnel. He looked around him expectantly, wanting to share the spectacle, but people were on their feet, retrieving their bags and putting on their coats. They’d seen it a hundred times, watched the change happening slowly. Like growing old, they just didn’t notice it. Whatever the feeling was in his throat, he could now put a name to it. Excitement. He felt like a child about to arrive at Butlins. Only this was going to be no holiday.

  Nicola Ke
lly checked herself in the full-length mirror at the bottom of the stairs, admiring her shapely figure in her new clobber. She got close to the mirror and scraped the mascara gunk out of the corner of her eyes with a little fingernail. She checked each profile and gave her shoulder-length brown hair a quick finger-comb. The make-up was good. Not too much to make a fuss. She sighed and looked at her watch. He’d said he’d be back by seven.

  She heard a car door slam outside and stood tall, pushed up her boobs and pulled on her jacket, hoping to get out of the door before he could say anything. But Micky Kelly stood in the doorway already. Where are you going? his marble eyes asked.

  It was over in a nanosecond. He took in her lipstick and clothes in the blink of an eye. She stiffened, the memory of being held over the bathroom sink, the face being scrubbed off her with a nail brush still fresh in her mind. She looked back in the mirror, this time flattening everything down and pulling the top up over her cleavage.

  ‘Come ’ere, man,’ said Micky, putting his thick arms around his wife’s waist. He hated it when she flinched in his arms. ‘You’re fucking gorgeous.’ He kissed her, pressed himself against her, breathing out heavily and reaching down to her firm, round backside with his hands.

  Nicola felt his hot breath on her face and pulled back. ‘Margy’ll be here in a minute,’ she said, looking around for her handbag. ‘Why don’t you come later?’

  Spurned, Micky turned away and walked to the kitchen. He emptied his gym bag onto the floor. Why would he want to spend his evening with his wife’s sorry excuse for a brother? Nicola swallowed her anxiety. She needed to see her brother. His trial was only a week away and he wasn’t coping. He was jumpy and fractious, thin as a rake and black around the eyes from lack of sleep. She knew the signs when he was about to fall over the edge.

  She weighed up her options, every little decision needing an assessment of the consequences. She walked into the kitchen and sidled up behind her husband, her arms going round his great stomach. She purred a little: ‘The kids’ll be staying next door, so if you can get off work and come later.....’

  He cleared his throat. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, feeling himself harden. But by the time he’d turned round, Nicola was heading to the living room.

  Their two lovely boys sat on the floor with sherbet dips watching The Lion King, Liam’s favourite film. Six-year-old Michael was showing little Liam how to lick his finger and dip it in sherbet. Her bag lay on the floor next to Liam. It had become his favourite toy of late. Taking everything out and putting everything carefully back in. She kissed them on their heads, picked up her bag and headed for the hall just as she heard the doorbell.

  As she opened the door she heard Micky shout, ‘And don’t let that fat bitch get you pissed!’ She stared into her friend’s unyielding face. Margy sucked in one round cheek and glanced over Nicola’s shoulder at her fuckwit of a husband, her arms folded over her huge breasts. ‘Hiya, Margy!’ Micky shouted pleasantly. Margy sighed and curled her lip. She couldn’t be arsed with fuckwits.

  ‘Haway,’ said Margy and turned from the door as Nicola shouted her goodbyes. Nicola caught up with her friend just as Margy was taking an envelope from her bag. ‘Here, this came to the centre for you.’

  Nicola opened it and read it. Her computer qualification: a distinction in word processing and spreadsheets. Her face spread into a smile: ‘Eeeeh, Margy, I’m not thick! I’m not thick!’ she said, waving the paper in the air.

  ‘Aye well, give it back here. If Him Indoors finds out, he’ll have you locked in the shed for a fortnight.’

  Nicola gave the envelope back to Margy with a grin. Her first ever qualification. It felt good. As she walked briskly down the street, shoulder to shoulder with her best friend, she pulled the top back down and pushed her boobs back up into their rightful position.

  Lee ordered a large Scotch with ice from a waiter in a white pinny. He observed the straight-haired women in glittering heels sipping cocktails and the rosy-cheeked men drinking beer out of bottles, their shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, their voices carrying crystal-clear and unselfconscious. This wasn’t the Newcastle he remembered. But then, his life had been on Valley Park – his school, his friends, his enemies, the Nags Head where they all drank underage and freely. The only thing that hadn’t been on Valley Park was Debbie. Debbie was from Jesmond Vale – the posh end. She’d wanted to defy her round-bellied philanderer of a father, and show her tight-arsed mother that girls could have fun if they wanted. It was the 1980s, and freedom was rife. They’d met just days after his sixteenth birthday in Eldon Square Shopping Centre where she was looking for earrings and he was looking for girls. Lee was the handsome one: his perfectly wedged hair and brown Bambi eyes meant he wasn’t short of girlfriends. His mates, Hoots and Dinger, were spotty and skinny with lank mullets to their shoulders. They would have to make do with the ugly mates, but they were happy for anything they could get, let’s face it. Debbie was with her friends, twin daughters of dentists, both with mouths full of metal and shoulder pads out to here. Lee had sat opposite her with his Big Mac. She’d grinned a gappy, imperfect grin at him over the straw of her milkshake and he’d nearly come in his stone-washed denims. It wasn’t long before he was coming inside her on Tynemouth beach and Louise was made.

  At sixteen, Lee had walked away from Valley Park, never to return. The news of his impending parenthood had sent his own embittered father into one of his unearthly rages. Bruce Turner’s kid? Debbie Turner? Bruce Turner had given him a job, a chance, for Christ’s sake! It might just be part-time, but he could sit in a chair and seal boxes. And now his own son had got the man’s daughter up the spout? Did he know who this man was? Lee knew who he was, the mighty Bruce Turner with his box at Newcastle United and his scrapyards and factories all over the place. Yes, he gave the odd cripple a job to help him get his jowly mug on the local news. Lee had never returned to Valley Park after that. But it was Frank who had said never. Never wanted him in his house again, never thought he’d amount to anything, never wanted to see him again. His father’s sticks beat the words across his back.

  Finishing his whisky, he looked at the row of taxis outside the hotel bar window. He should do it now. Get it over with.

  When Nicola arrived at the pub with Margy, her brother, Mark, and his wife were already there. Mark’s wife, Kim, was looking a bit rough. Normally she’d have her make-up on perfect and her hair washed and styled, but tonight her face shone and her blonde hair was brittle and dark at the roots. She’d lost weight since the baby was born. They both looked worn out, but they were still in love, Mark and Kim. It made Nicola feel lonely inside. It made her want the old Micky back. She wanted it to be like it was, before he started to blow everything out of all proportion.

  She loved the bones of this boy, her little brother. They were extensions of each other. They looked alike, same dark, shiny hair, freckled noses and heavily lashed, green eyes. Of course, his hair was shorn now, the edge of a tattoo of some beast from his back reaching up and round his neck. It was never questioned that they wouldn’t be near each other for the rest of their lives. She’d looked after them both when it became obvious that their mother didn’t care if they went to school or not, if they were loved or not. But, unlike Mark, it had made Nicola tough. He needed her, and she would always protect him.

  She watched him now as he sucked on the end of a cigarette like it was his last. He was a nervous wreck. She took in the long scar above his left eyebrow, reaching down to his temple, the mark of the baton of some flat-faced policeman. The police had made his life hell for years, and Nicola felt her blood boil whenever she saw a uniform or a squad car. They’d got their way this time. She wanted to spit on them, the shitheads. Everyone knew Mark wasn’t into drugs anymore. And even if he was, he wasn’t thick enough to keep it up the kitchen drainpipe where the slimy hands of some greasy copper had no doubt put it. Mark was terrified of going to prison, of being cooped up, unable to breathe, and if he ended up inside, she
knew the scum would have got just what they wanted. She was frightened too. She knew it would ruin Mark’s fragile life at best, and kill him at worst. She hated every last one of those pigs, and when her husband drank with them and shook their hands she wanted to kick him hard in the balls.

  Margy interrupted her thoughts with a nudge in the ribs. ‘It’s the band,’ she said, pointing at four large, hairy men lugging instruments. Nicola grunted and Margy raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Well, go on then! Get the bliddy drinks in!’

  The taxi dropped Lee at the edge of Valley Park, the driver not wanting to venture anywhere near the Nags Head. ‘Nowt but trouble,’ he growled as Lee handed him a fiver and watched the taxi speed away without the offer of any change. He walked towards the pub. Everything around him was frighteningly familiar, yet different, smaller than he remembered, quieter and darker.

  He pushed the door to the pub open and walked up to the bar. A band was setting up on the stage and people were whooping and cheering the big, bearded blokes in Dubliners T-shirts. He took in the faces around him: the barman, the old, toothless drunk swaying like long grass. That’s when he noticed her at the bar. He only glanced at her for a second, but felt himself redden a little. His head turned as he felt her move next to him, his eyes drawn to her, like an addict is drawn to their drug of choice. The barman asked him what he wanted but he shook his head. ‘She’s next,’ he said. He heard her order a pint and three lemonades. She threw her hair back from her shoulders and looked at Lee. He saw something in her face, a flutter of recognition maybe. Her green eyes blinked at him for a second. He opened his mouth to speak but she turned back to the barman to pay for her drinks, then walked back to the table she shared with a big, matronly woman, a puny man with a neck full of tattoos, and a childlike young woman with frizzy blonde hair in a small ponytail.

  Nicola set the tray on the table and blew her fringe from her face. As she’d stood at the bar, her arm a few millimetres from that of a man she thought she recognised, she’d felt a flicker in her tummy like she did when her babies first moved. It didn’t show, obviously, she’d made sure of that. She sat down and drank the top inch of lemonade from her glass. She glanced at Lee: maybe she knew him from school, or maybe he was off the telly or something. He was dressed well, good jeans, expensive shirt tucked in with the sleeves rolled up, and the shoes shone. She soon realised, though, that she simply recognised one of her own when she saw it, no matter how much their shoes cost. She knew everyone on this estate, knew every face in this pub, but not this guy. She watched him light a cigarette, both hands wrapped tightly round his lighter, not behind one hand like the posh people who often had their cigarettes lit for them. The skin was lined, his teeth a little out of kilter, and his nails bitten to the quick; his joints and knuckles had the old roughness and scarring of a man who’d worked outdoors and, though he stood up straight, his shoulders were somewhat bent forward like someone who’d stood in the cold many a night. This was a local boy made good. And handsome, too.