Ecstasy (11 page)

We got em trussed up and Bal slashed the phone wires. Shorthand put his hand on the geezer’s shoulder. – Now. Don’t you people be goin and talkin to di officers of di law now, you hear me? Sure, you’ve two lovely children upstairs there who go by the names of Andy and Jessica now, don’t they just?

They nod at him in shock.

– You wouldn’t want us to be comin back here for dem, now would you? Now.

They stared at him in fear, the crapping cunts. I said: – We know yon school yir weans go tae, the scout troop, the fuckin guide pack; we know everything. But youse forget us and we forget youse, right? Yis goat oaf lucky!

– So no plaice in-volv-mant, Bal says softly, touching the gel’s face with the flat end of his knife.

The side of the skirt’s face had swollen right up an all. That made me feel funny. I don’t hold with hitting a Doris: not like my old man. He don’t hit my mum now though, not since I told the cunt he better hadn’t. That’s one thing I’d never do is to hit a Doris. Tonight, well, that don’t count cause that’s business, that’s all there is to it. You’re in the striker’s role and you can’t let the side down. First cunt who opens that fucking door gets it, Doris or no fucking Doris, as hard as you can fucking well give it. And I can give it fucking hard all right. It’s like the whole job depends on it and you can’t let the side down. Gotta be professional, innit. Like I said it’s business, and what’s good for business is good for Britain and I like to do my bit for the Union Jack. You gotta just put all them personal likes and dislikes aside, they don’t come into it. But punching a Doris ain’t something I go for: not in a personal way like. I ain’t saying it’s really wrong cause I know some Dorises that deserve a fucking good slapping; all I’m saying is that their ain’t no real satisfaction in it.

– Sure, it’s a pleasure doin business with such foine folks, Shorthand says, and we just piss off leaving the family in peace, while we’re buzzing on the old adrenalin. One thing I am glad of is that we
didn
’t have to wake any of them kiddies. I got a little un of my own and the thought of some cunt doing something like that there … well, no cunt would fucking well dare. The thought makes me wary though, sort of puts me in mind to check up on the little un. Maybe go round there tomorrow morning like.

Wolverhampton, 1963

Spike laughed and raised the glass of Bank’s bitter, halting it an inch from his lips. – Cheers, Bob, he grinned, his deep-set eyes furrowing into one narrow slit which looked like a mouth, – moy all your problems be little uns!

Bob winked, and took a sip from the pint. He smiled at his workmates around the table. He felt good about them all, even Spike. Spike wasn’t so bad. If he didn’t want to get on, that was up to him. Spike would be happy to be stuck in The Scotlands for the rest of his life; no ambition but to use up the big wages on more drink and more hopeless horses. He’d felt the gulf grow between them since he’d flitted, and it was to do with more than his physical displacement out to the Ford Houses Estate. He remembered what Spike had said: Y’all don’t want tall boi movink out there, spending all that good brass on a bloody house when the council’ll rent ya’ll woon chayp. Ya’ll got to enjoy loife!

That was Spike’s view of enjoyment, tipping Bank’s down his neck. Molyneux’s North Bank on a Saturday, after the bookies. That was his life, but he was standing still. Bob was working-class and proud of it, but he was a skilled man. He wanted the best for his family.

His family. The first one on the way. The thought warmed him with the rum he had with his pint.

– Another one, Bob? Spike urged.

– Don know about that. Oive got the hospital tonight. Could happen any toime, they said.

– Roobeesh! Ferst woons ur orlweys loite, everywoon knows that! Spike roared as Tony and Clem gave a drum-roll of encouragement on the table with their empty glasses.

But Bob got up and left. He knew that they’d be talking about him and what they’d be saying: that he had gone soft, that he was spoiling their excuse to get drunk, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to see Mary.

It was raining outside: a dull slow drizzle. Although it was still the afternoon, the winter darkness was starting to fall and Bob pulled his collar tight against a whipping wind. A Midland Red bus came into view, then it was upon him, then it was zooming past his outstretched hand. It was half empty and he was at the bus stop and it hadn’t stopped. The stupid injustice of it bemused and angered him. – Fucking bastard Midland Red! he shouted at the vehicle’s waddling, teasing rear as it receded away from him. He trudged on.

He sensed that something was wrong when he got to the hospital. It was just a flash, that fleeting sensation that something was amiss. Every expectant father must feel this, he thought to himself. Then he felt it again.

Something had gone wrong. But what could? This was the twentieth century. Nothing went wrong these days. This was Britain.

Bob’s breath was almost knocked from him when he saw his wife in the bed, howling through her obvious sedation. She looked terrible. – Bob … she wailed.

– Mary … what happened … you had it … is it okay … where’s the baby!

– You have a little girl, a healthy little girl, a nurse said without enthusiasm or conviction.

– They won’t let me see it, Bob, they won’t let me hold my baby, Mary whined.

– What’s happening ere! Bob shouted.

Another nurse had appeared behind him. She had a long, tortured face. She looked like someone who had seen something that was both terrifying and incomprehensible. She wore her professional demeanour like a tramp wears a new tuxedo. – There are one or two irregularities … she said slowly.

A Slag’s Habit

She ain’t changed the fucking lock yet; she knows what she’d get if she tried that one. I’d kept my set of the keys for this shithole after I moved out. I told her that I needed a place of my own. It was best all round. But yeh, I still kept a key for this gaff though, so I could come round and see the little un; stands to reason that I’d want to do that. She hears my key in the lock and looks at me all funny as I step in. The little fellah’s here though, he comes out from behind her.

She smokes in front of him n all. Forty a day she fucking well smokes. Slag’s habit. I hate to see skirt smoking. Different in a geezer like, but common in skirt, especially young skirt. I mean, I ain’t talking about my old gel like. I mean she gets little enough bleedin pleasure out of life as it is, I wouldn’t deny her her snout. In young skirt though it’s too fucking tarty. Then there’s the health aspect to be considered. That’s what I said to her the last time I was up. I warned the slut about smoking in front of the nipper. You gotta consider the bleedin health aspect, I told her. Don’t bear thinking about.

– He needs new shoes, Dave, she says.

– Yeah? Well I’ll get him a pair then, won’t I, I tell her. I ain’t giving her no more bleedin dosh. It’ll only go on the cheapest pair with the balance on snout for that slag. I ain’t that fucking soft.

The little un’s looking at me.

– Ow’s my boy then, eh?

– All right, he says.

– All right? I goes, – Wot’s all this about all right? Wot about a kiss for your old pop then, eh? He comes over and gives me a nice wet slammer on the side of my gob. – That’s my boy, I tell him, ruffling his hair. I’ll have to stop this kissing lark though, he’s getting far too bleedin big for that. Could make him soft, that palaver could; even
worse
, turn him into one of them queer blouses you see hanging around. Ain’t natural that. I turn to her, – Oi, that queer-arsed nonce ain’t still hanging around the school, is he?

– Nah, ain’t heard no more about it.

– Well if you do let me know straight away. Ain’t no sick-beast coming near my boy, ain’t that right, son? Remember what I told you, if anybody mucks about with you at that school?

– Kick em in the bollocks! he says. I laugh, and give him a bit of shadow boxing. Heavy hands for a little kiddie; a chip off the old block that one, if The Slag brings him up good n proper that is.

The Slag. She does look pretty tasty today though, made up n all. – You seein anybody, gel? I ask her.

– Not at the moment, she goes, all sort of snooty like.

– Get your fucking knickers orf then.

– Dave! Don’t talk like that. Not in front of Gary, she says, pointing at the little fellah.

– Yeah, right. Listen, Gal, you take this dosh n get yerself some sweets. There’s the car keys, this one opens the door. Wait for us in the motor, right? I’ll just be a few minutes. Got some things to say to your mum; grown-up’s things like.

The little geezer toddles off with the dosh, then she starts giving me a hard time.

– I don’t wanna, she says.

– I don’t bleedin well care what you bleedin well want, do I, I tell her. No fucking respect, that was always The Slag’s problem, a sort of personality defect. She puts on that fucking face, but she knows the score and she’s getting her kit off and going through to the bedroom. I get her on the bed and start kissing her, my tongue in that horrible ashtray mouth. I get her legs open and get up between her easy enough, the dirty slag’s like a sodding dripping sponge down there, and I start giving her one. I just want to blow my fucking load and get on out of there, down to the bleeding car. The thing is, whenever I get into her, I can’t bleedin well come … and it’s fucking well happening again, I should’ve known better. She’s going fucking mad; her that didn’t fucking want any of it n all, she’s going bleeding well mad and I can’t fucking well come.

I FUCKING HATE THE CUNT THE FUCKING DIRTY COW AND I CAN’T BLEEDING WELL COME.

I want to rip her fucking smelly cunt apart, to really fucking hurt that dirty bitch, but the harder I go at it, the easier she takes it all, loving every minute of it she is, the fucking filthy warped evil fucking slag … it ain’t supposed to be this … I keep seeing him, Lyonsy from the Millwall, I keep seeing him in my head. I’m trying to fuck off Lyonsy instead of her. That rumble we had down the Rotherhithe Tunnel when I got in first and hit that big cunt three fucking times and he just stood there and took it all, gave me that fucking look as if I was just a little fucking toy.

Then he hit me.

– DAAAAAVEEE! DAAAAVEE! she’s fucking well screaming her head off innit, – STAY, ALWAYS STAY, WE CAN MAKE IT WORK, OH DAVE … OH DAAAAVEEE! She’s bucking like a fucking stallion, I can feel the power of her under me and the size of her to me n all and I’m feeling dead inside as she come to rest and I pull out still as fucking hard as a brick and I got to get well away from this bleedin slag, cause if I don’t I ain’t gonna be responsible for what I might do.

I’m getting dressed and she’s got a big smile on her face and she’s going on about how nobody’ll ever change me and when she said that before it used to make me feel special, no doubt about that, but now it makes me feel like a big fucking stupid lemon that the whole world’s laughing up its fucking sleeve at.

– Yeah, I tell her, getting the fuck out of it and going down to the car, but I ain’t in the mood for the bleedin kid. Not now: now that that fucking slag’s spoiled everything. I dump him off at my sister’s: he’s happier there, playing with her little uns. I ain’t really much one for the kiddies if the truth be known.

I go back to my flat and pull out a copy of
Playboy
, the one with that Opal Ronson slag in it. I’ve taken out the staples so I stick it on the fridge using the magnets. It ain’t like I buy dirt mags usually, just if one of the stars is in getting their kit off. It’s good to see the fucking stars in the buff, sort of like seeing someone you know. Takes away the fucking mystique, makes them seem more sort of available like.
I
’ve got a fresh melon in the fridge and I’ve already dug in three holes the width and depth of my erection; two at one end and one at the other, for Opal’s cunt, arsehole and mouth. I put a bit lipstick on the mouth one. Then I squirt some Pond’s hand cream in the others and we’re fucking well off … where do you fucking want it, girl, your gob or your arse or your cunt … I’m concentrating on the image of Opal bending over, her back arched and I can’t work out what she’s saying to me, whether or not she wants it up her cunt or her arsehole and something about those dark eyes says to me that maybe Opal ain’t the sort orf gel to take it up the tradesman’s on a first date, I’m thinking of her in that
Seductive Affairs
… naah … but then in that
Paranoid
, definitely; then I think, fuck it, the bitch maybe needs to be taught a fucking lesson and in it fucking well goes … phoah, this is going to fucking well spilt you in two, my gel … phoah … KWWAAWWW!

My head’s fucking dizzy as my muck just pumps and pumps into the melon. A few imaginary seconds in Opal’s crapbox does it for me. God bless ya, my gel.

I take a little doze on my couch and when I wake I try to watch the box but I can’t bleedin settle. I do some work with the dumb-bells and examine my pecs. The definition’s coming on, but it’s still a bit poofhouse, like the strutting queerbeasts at the club. It’s beef I want, for punching power. After a bit I go down the Blind Beggar. There ain’t no cunt in, so I try the Grave Maurice. They’re all there: Bal, Riggsie, Shorthand, Roj, John n all. I get a pint of brown and bitter up and go over. It’s a nice crack n all and I’m just starting to relax and get into it when I hears this noise at the bar.

– HEEEYYYYGGGHHHH!

I turn around and see him. That pathetic old bastard, my bleedin old man. Look at him: lurching around out of his fucking tree, bothering people. Fucking pathetic, that’s what he is, that’s what he always was. Now the pest had fucking clocked us and he’s coming over here. Bal, Riggsie n Shorthand, well these cunts are loving every minute of my fucking embarrassment, ain’t they.

– Awright, ma boey! Buy yir auld fella a drink then, eh? Eh! He says. He’s fucking sozzled, the cunt.

– I’m trying to have a bleeding conversation here, I tell him.

He raises his eyebrows n looks at me like I’m some kind of arsehole. Then he puts his hands on his hips. – Oh, a conversation, is it …