Brothers

BILLY Chapter 1 Tommy screamed at his younger brother, ‘shoot him, shoot him in the head, pull the fucking trigger Billy, NOW! I can’t, I can’t’, Billy’s hand was shaking and the gun was heavy, if he had pulled the trigger he more than likely would have shot his own brother. Tommy carried on screaming at him and the old man just sat and watched them both in total shock, ‘these little bastard’s are going to kill me’, as the realisation seeped into his brain he felt the warmth of his own urine spread down his legs, ‘they’re going to kill me, I’m going to die’. Tommy ripped the gun from his brother’s hand and pointed directly at the old man’s head and said in an evil tone, ‘night, night granddad’ and he pulled the trigger. The old man’s body lurched back and toppled over, the blood was dark red and spreading around his head. Billy was beside himself, he was crying and shouting at his older brother, ‘What did yer do that for, you’ve killed him Tommy, what are we going to do, they’ll lock us up’. ‘For Christ sakes Billy, will you just shut the fuck up, you’re doing me head in’. ‘Tommy he’s dead, why was he here, he shouldn’t have been here, we’ve been watching this place for weeks, why was he here, he should have been at the pub’. Well, he ain’t going to no bleeding pub now is he’, says Tommy. They had been watching the old man for a couple of weeks and as old people, he had a routing whereby every evening 6.30pm he would leave his hall light and lounge light on and the TV would be playing in the background, so anyone coming to the house would think there was someone home. This was the height of his security. However, he didn’t reckon to two boys aged ten and fourteen years old to be something to worry about, how wrong he was. ‘Why was he still at home, Tommy’ cried Billy. ‘Jesus, will you shut up, I don’t know and I don’t care’. Tommy was busy going through the old man’s pockets, ‘make yourself useful and go through the draws’. Billy started ransacking the drawers and didn’t have a clue as to what he was looking for, and with the tears and snot running down his face he couldn’t see either. At the back of the sideboard Billy found a box. Still crying he opened it and his eyes went as big as golf balls. ‘Tommy, Tommy look at this’. It was crammed with screwed up notes five, ten’s, twenties and fifty pound notes. The boys started throwing the money up in the air and whooping with glee, Billy had forgotten the terrible deed they had just committed. ‘And that makes seventy five so all in all we have two thousand four hundred and seventy five quid, not bad going, hey’? Billy looked back to where the old man lay and he could feel the terror beginning to build up inside him, ‘can we go now Tommy’? ‘Yeah, I think we got what we came for’. Billy was thinking differently, ‘we got more than we came for’ and a fleeting memory ran through his head at the look of surprise not only on the old man’s face, but on his and Tommy’s. It was 7pm and the old man was getting his coat ready for the off, he had fallen asleep in front of the telly that afternoon, something he never did and he chided himself for it. He was 82 years old and he prided himself that he had a good routine and he never slept during the day. He would prepare his evening meal everyday at 4.30pm and by 5.30pm to 6pm the plates and pots would be washed and stacked away. He would then go and wash his face, comb his hair and at 6.30pm he would leave for his local ‘The Hair and Hounds’. He would have three pints and maybe the odd whiskey if someone else brought it for him and dead on 9.30pm he would say his goodbyes and he would be on his way back home. This was his routine. For years people in the pub could set their watches by old Ted Donnelly, so when he didn’t pitch that Friday night, the talk was ‘old Ted’s late tonight, not like him, hey? Well he’s getting on, isn’t he’? But no one was going to leave their drink or the pub to see if he was ok. Instead they spoke of him expecting him to walk through the door as he normally did, with a nod to the barman who would be already pulling Ted’s first pint of the night. He was a bit of a joke to the regulars as he was a regular as clockwork; he even had his own seat by the bar which nobody would use. If a strange came in and sat on Ted’s bar stool he was told, ‘don’t get comfy, the old fella that sit’s there he’ll shift you just now’. So when the two brothers crept around the back of Ted’s house and climbed through his kitchen window, which Ted always left open for his cat to climb in and out of, it’s not clear as to who was the most surprised, but one thing for sure is that Billy didn’t know that his brother had a gun and the gun was long and heavy, with a funny looking barrel at the end of it. The words on the gun were foreign and Billy couldn’t understand them. He wasn’t even sure if it was real, he looked up to his brother who was his hero and Tommy played it that way for him. He would never let his little brother know how he really felt because that would spoil it. The old man was sat tying his shoe laces getting ready for the off, when he looked up and saw the two boys. ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing in my house, hey’? He was just about to get up and go for them when Tommy pulled the gun from out of his trouser; Billy’s eyes nearly fell out of his head. ‘Tommy you’ve got a gun’ he blurted. ‘No shit, hey! Always said you were a smart lad’. Ted’s eyes also bulged, this was not good, two young lads and a gun, ‘where’s the money? I don’t have any money’ said the old man. ‘I don’t, I think you’ve come to the wrong house young fella, they’ll not find any money here’. ‘Oh no! Well, you seem to have enough to go out to the pub every night so hand it over’. Ted protesting that he had no money was making Tommy very angry and his brother was getting very nervous, especially looking at Tommy with the gun in his hand. ‘Now stop being a silly old fucker and give me the MONEY’!!! Tommy screamed at him. Tommy shoved the gun in Billy’s hand, ‘hold this on him while I search him’. As he gave Billy the gun, Ted saw it as an opportunity to jump up, but before he could, Tommy pushed him back down in his chair and turned to Billy and screamed to him, ‘shoot him, shoot him, shoot him in the head, pull the fucking trigger Billy’. Chapter 2 The house where Ted lived was not in the best part of Manchester and some of the houses in his street had been empty for years and were boarded up. Ted had lived there all his life. It had been his mother’s home and he had married and settled there with his wife Peggy. They had one child, a daughter called Maggie. Ted’s wife died when the girl was only twelve and things went from bad to worse. She was a spoilt, selfish ungrateful kid and by the time she was fifteen she was gone, and that was fifteen years ago. He’d never seen her since nor did he care, she was rotten to the very core. He blamed his wife for the way Maggie behaved. His wife, Peggy, gave her everything. It got to the point where the girl would go into her mother’s purse when she wasn’t in the room and she felt nothing lifting a twenty pound or even a fifty pound note. Of course her mother missed it but she said nothing, so Ted never knew. Maggie never stole from her dad until her mother died and her supply of ready cash had been taken from her, so it was into the old man’s wallet. At first he thought, ‘I’m going mad; I could have sworn I had this or that’. He really questioned his own sanity never thinking that it was his own daughter, all those years you would have thought butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. All those years Peggy kept secrets from him about the money, boys, drugs, drink and their daughter’s foul mouth, all at the age of twelve.