What gives my son?

"Gerrr offf me!"

A door slammed. A fist slammed the door.

"Ey... c'mon... ler us in, love!"

Pleading and slurring, the voice begged loudly,

"Aw it's not that bad, queen, it's not like I said.."

Joey ground his face against the pillow, willing his eyes to remain shut and hoping against hope his brain would follow suit. He'd only just drifted off and now his ears were being assaulted by Roxy's neighbours, returning to perform their own special midnight version of Punch and Judy. He really could live without the rendition that involved a standing ovation especially for the local constabulary.

This was why he hated staying over at Roxy's flat. Whatever anyone cared to say about his own living arrangements; a single bed, in a brother filled room, in a property with twice as many occupants as bedrooms, in a back to back street with more people than cars, it was a house. When you shut the door at night that was it, separation. The world one side and him the other. And it stayed outside. Unless you wanted to let it in. Beyond of the four-by-two of front door to number 30 Kelsall Street was another universe. If you wanted it to be. Not a flat with a shared entrance hall or a bedsit with a shared bedroom or a penthouse palace where for all the cash you'd spent living to live looking down on the world you could still bump into it when you got in the lift. That was the reason he hated staying at Roxy's place. That, and the other reason . He wouldn't let his mind go there though, not now, not here.

Joey knew Roxy thought he avoided her place because , although venerated on the housing list to the heady heights of a 'bedsit', really it was a half-way house for the recently released from prison or the street and just half one step up from a hostel or a Bed and Breakfast, a grim situation on anyone's terms. One draughty converted living room masquerading as a cooking, sleeping and living area. She'd put some of the money Joey proffered each week towards a sofa bed, so at least now there was an option of kitchen chairs to sit on to while eating . Roxy's wages put food on the table and plugged something near the gap between what the DHSS stumped up and the landlord's asking price. It was a hole, and neither of them would deny that, but that wasn't the reason Joey hated staying at Roxy's place. The problem for Joey remained that even this reason, and all the other reasons that plagued the rational remnants of his brain, couldn't get near the hold on his heart which filled his mind with mush when faced with the reason he always caved and always stayed.

Squeezing his eyes shut again in a desperate to attempt his mind flooding with coherent thought , Joey unclenched the fists his hands had unconsciously formed and felt the reason he stayed, stir. The reason he hadn't thought of an excuse tonight and reminded him why exactly why he agreed as it stretched an arm across the blanket to for him.

Soft skin brushing his ribs, soothing.

Roxy.

This was why he'd stayed.

Why he had trampled over his better judgement in a heartbeat and slammed the brakes on his brain the second it had attempted to send his gob the default excuse 'Oh, okay well tomorrow's fine, yeah..' when Roxy called him to tell him she couldn't get away for dinner this evening. Her mam had swapped shifts and that meant it was her place or nothing. Why he'd ridden an awkward silence and had already brought the takeaway and the wine in his mind before he accepted her offer to come over. He knew he'd be there before he spoke and despite all the misgiving and doubts doing a conga in his stomach, he'd known he'd agreed before he spoke.

Still something in his tone must have let him down a touch though and he kicked himself as Roxy attempted in her most persuasive voice;

"Look, I'll make us something', she added self-consciously, "I can cook y' know."

Joey had experienced a momentary pang of guilt. In the whole of their relationship he couldn't recall that they had ever having eaten a meal together that hadn't been born in a restaurant or very least a takeaway kitchen. What did that say about them? Too much for him to think about now he reminded himself as he pulled himself back to making sure he put her off.

" Ican even make vegetarian taste nice.." She chided him and he ignored the opening, cutting her off swiftly;

"No sweat, I'll be out anyway. And it'll be late."

Promising earnestly, Joey reassured;

I'll go by the Chinese, your usual, my usual. No washing up."

He shed with relief when she mocked him about washing up and he realised he'd won. Panic receding as he revelled in the relief at getting away with it without even getting near having mentioning the real reason he didn't want her to cook a meal.

Pushing his thoughts away, head rooted to the pillow, Joey stretched out an arm to acknowledge her, to let his fingers gently stroke her hair.

When a tiny hand reached back at him to tap his shoulder, Joey's heart stopped on the spot. When it started again it drummed louder than anything the neighbours could manage. He turned to meet the mop of short brown hair and seemingly endless brown eyes blinking back at him. Brown eyes staring right back at him. Questions formed in the darkness between them. Eyes locked ,mirroring fear. Michael blinked first, rubbing his eyes, sleepily. His eyes and everything about him shrinking under Joey's gaze. Recoiling to the far side of the bed, Joey felt his stomach lurch as he put a finger to his lips. '

'Please, God, don't let her wake up', he prayed silently as the brown eyes fixed upon him once again.

Joey let himself catch a breath, his brain finally catching up with the moment to remind him of the salient fact that had kept him in such good stead over the years. Panic really isn't contagious.

"Go back to sleep."

Joey whispered, hoping to land attempt somewhere between gentle and firm enough that it wouldn't induce a mother waking reaction in the four year old. The boy turned in an instant, pulling himself into the blanket and making a cocoon with every last inch of Joey's share of the bed clothes.

'Fair play, son.'

Joey acknowledged the boy in his mind, with an emotion he couldn't place. Allowing himself a moment's relief before glancing over at Roxy's still sleeping form. He'd give it a moment, to be sure that she was as sleeping as soundly as it appeared. Michael hadn't moved a muscle, and while it was highly unlikely he was asleep, Joey felt convinced that the unwelcome possibility that he would do anything to wake his mother had passed.

As he edged off the sofa bed, Joey felt even even more naked as the cold seemed to be emanate from every bare surface, making a beeline for his exposed skin. He moved as lightly as humanly possible whilst trying desperately to fend off the shivers. His attention turning to an attempt to locate items of his clothing. One of the very few negatives experiences he'd encountered on in a life lived in mostly black attire was the difficulty of reacquainting himself with his clothing in the dead of the night. He made a grateful salute to St. Anthony when he spotted his pants and tux trousers re at the foot of the bed. He pulled them on hurriedly, hoping to avoid any even more awkward moments if Michael stirred again.

Joey knew he'd had enough wine, earlier, to feel it but not enough that a pint of water and splash of his face couldn't sort him out enough to make the drive home. He glanced across to the shapes in the bed.

He had to leave, he couldn't stay. Not now.

The white shirt he'd been wearing appeared to have vanished and Joey cursed his inability to remember where he'd taken it off. Too much wine, he convinced himself. Had to be too much wine. Couldn't be any other excuse for failing to locate your kit when we you'd spent your existence in the chasm of chaos that was his bedroom at home. With its very own unique vortex that snatched items of clothing, shoes, razors, aftershave, anything else Joey owned or valued and hadn't been nailed to the floor with speed that left Grandad in the shade. None of that experience was helping was essentially a tidy person but with a kid and a space this small, the room was in effect a rather large wardrobe with items of clothing hanging from any and every available surface.

As herooted in hope, rather than anticipation, through a pile of Roxy's blouses, Joey noticed it. Amidst pastel blouses and pencil skirts, in the inky dark half light of the flat, he couldn't mistake it.

A Liverbird on a pedestal.

The crest that seemed to come life on the wall opposite his bed ,when he was baby lad, and everyone else had fallen asleep and he was still awake guarding the night and keeping him safe. The crest he'd glared a thousand holes into when Yizzel crunched the Jag. The crest that had caused his Dad to appear in their room at midnight so he could give it 'just one last kiss' after the Cup Final. The crest Billy had been smacked for drawing on when he'd first moved into their room from his Mam and Dad's. The crest that Adrian contended had stated the nightmares that gave him that rash. The crest that Jack shad saluted the day their Uncle Cyril had got him on an open top bus to see the end of season trophy parade in town. The crest that had been the only witness to Joey's tears when Edgar disappeared. That crest. On a tiny shirt.

The crest on the genuine number '8' Aldridge Liverpool shirt Joey'd bought for a pinch from a desperate Yizzel and checked carefully for signs of a fake before he gave to Billy when he wanted one for Francesca . It was a football shirt and Joey had known exactly what Julie would say before Billy got to his feet and to confirm that she had indeed, made an almighty fuss about her daughter 'being a girl Billy, if it's taken you four years to notice and not some butch, mud in her hair, larking in the street' girl either. She's my daughter Billy Boswell!" That had been that, Billy had cried and Joey had the shirt back in his possession again. He had been tempted to turn it over to Jack to see if he could make a few quid selling it on. Or he 'd thought about giving it to his Mam for Father Dooley to raffle down at the church. By his reckoning a signed Aldridge shirt would have to be worth a discount of at least ten 'Hail Mary's' and an 'Our Father' next time his Mam levered him towards the confessional.

But he hadn't, he'd looked at it too long. Remembered too well what it meant, your first football shirt. So when he'd given Roxy her money, that week, he gave the shirt too. And she'd been so delighted , so made up and Joey knew it was for all the wrong reasons. Joey knew in an instant that he'd undermined resolve, the line he'd forced himself to draw in the sand of that moment , nearly a year ago, when he'd been forced to ask the question he'd never wanted her to answer . He'd known the truth the first time he laid eyes on the boy. The boy with his mam's big brown eyes, washed up on the doorstep of number 30 Kelsall Street, staring back at Joey from the wreckage of Roxy's life. R

Joey perched on the edge of the table and smoothed creases from the shirt between his palms, letting his fingers trace the stitches of the crest, remembering his words.

"It's only money. That's all it can be now."