Pantheon 00 - Age of Godpunk (24 page)

The punk girl sidled up to the counter and plonked her elbows on it. Her hands were sheathed in fingerless lace gloves. Metal studs rimmed one ear. The obligatory safety pin speared her nose. She wasn’t tall, but she held herself as though she was, rising on her heels, her head and neck posturally correct. Guy was expecting her to affect an angry nasal drawl, just like Johnny Rotten, and was surprised when the voice that came out of her sounded polite and, well, normal.

“Large chips, please.”

Instantly – and he couldn’t for the life of himself tell why – he was smitten. With those three very mundane words, the punk girl somehow endeared herself to him and stirred the dormant ashes in his heart, kindling a glow.

“Er, yeah. Sure. Coming up.” He poured a scoopful of chips onto a Styrofoam tray, and added a second scoopful. It was a bigger helping than Mr Fernandinho formally prescribed as “large,” but as he wasn’t present at that moment, it didn’t matter. Guy bunged in a wooden chip fork and a sachet of tomato ketchup, then asked her about salt and vinegar.

“Nah,” she said. “I like them
au naturel
.”

“A chip purist,” he said, parcelling the portion up in newspaper.

“You what?”

“I said... Never mind.”

She frowned at him. Her eyes, amid all that kohl, were hazel with a hint of gold, and dazzlingly huge. Her skin was pale and, to Guy’s reckoning, flawless.

“Are you taking the mick?” she said. “‘Chip purist’?”

“Nope. Not at all. It was just an observation. Comment. Thing to say. Meant nothing by it.”

“Should hope so, too.”

“That’ll be seventy-eight pee.”

She handed over a one-pound note and he gave her change.

“So, erm...” he said as she turned to go.

“Yeah?”

“You new in town?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Why are you asking?”

“No reason. Just... asking. I haven’t seen you before, that’s all. Here, I mean.” He waved his hands, indicating the shop.

“In your mighty domain,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s because I’m normally into gourmet dining. If it hasn’t got a Michelin star, I’m not interested. I just thought this evening I’d see how the other half eat.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” she said with a derisive giggle. “You dolt.”

“So you are new in town.”

“So what if I am?” Her head tipped to one side, almost – almost – coquettishly.

“Then hello. Welcome. It’s funny, nobody’s ever called me a dolt before. Plenty of other things, but never a dolt.”

“I was going to say something worse, but then, you know...” She clicked her mouth towards Mr and Mrs Arkwright, or whatever their surname was. “Didn’t want to offend the pensioners.”

“A punk who’s scared of offending.”

“That such a surprise? We’re not all like the stereotyped idiots you see on TV, effing and blinding and gobbing.”

“And pogoing,” Guy added.

“Oh no, I pogo. If the guitars are thrashing and some skinny bloke is jumping up and down onstage snarling into a mike, I can’t help myself. It’s a thrill, when the music’s loud and the crowd are going mental. But that doesn’t make us all evil drooling monsters. It’s like Sid says, ‘We’re really quite nice and friendly, but everyone has a beastly side to them, don’t they?’”

“Ah, yes. Mr Vicious, the great sage of our times.”

“He damn well is and all. He’s wiser than you’ll ever be. You ever listened to any of the Pistols’ lyrics? Properly? No, you’re too middle-of-the-road and boring, aren’t you? Bet you like the Eagles and that Dire Straits. Maybe a bit of ABBA...”

“Hey!”

“Sorry. That was a low blow.”

Before Guy could reply, Mr Fernandinho emerged from the back room.

“Why are you standing there gassing with the customers, Guy?” he snapped. “There’s work to be done.”

There patently wasn’t. The restaurant was near empty. But Guy knew better than to argue with his boss. He grabbed a J-cloth and a can of Ajax powder. “I suppose the bins out back could do with a scrub.”

“That’s more like it.”

The punk girl smiled and popped a chip into her mouth. “I’ll let you get on with it, Guy.” Calling him Guy seemed to amuse her, or maybe it was just that she now knew his name, while he still had no idea what hers was, and this gave her some obscure advantage over him.

As she left, Mrs Allbright (or whatever) loudly and openly tutted.

“Oh,
what
?” the girl said to her.

“Such a shame,” the elderly woman said. “To see a pretty thing like you go to such lengths to make herself look so ugly.”

“Better that than looking like a shrivelled-up old testicle like you.”

The response was a sharp intake of breath and an aghast glare.

Guy hid a smile.

The girl turned on her heel and sashayed out of the shop.

She disappeared along the pavement. Then she backtracked to throw a glance in through the window. Catching Guy’s gaze, she stuck her tongue all the way out like a kabuki performer, flicked him a cheery ‘V,’ then was gone again.

“We can do without her type,” Mr Fernandinho muttered.

Guy felt quite the opposite.

O
N HIS ONE
day off a week, Guy liked to go for a stroll along the seafront, if the weather wasn’t too foul. Today, it was only drizzling, and with the collar of his bomber jacket turned up, the chill was bearable.

He was passing one of the shelters that dotted the promenade at intervals when someone called out to him.

“Oi. Chip shop.”

The punk girl was huddled on the bench inside the shelter, smoking.

“You,” Guy said.

“Yeah, me. Fancy a fag?” She offered him a cigarette from a pack of Silk Cut.

“No, thanks. Bad for your health.” Guy made to move on.

The girl rolled her eyes. “I’m asking you to come and sit next to me. It’s called a cue. You can either pretend you do smoke, or you can say no, but come back with some kind of line like ‘But I’ll watch you finish yours.’ Either way, you can at least be polite and give me five minutes of your time.”

Guy thought for a moment. “But I’ll watch you finish yours.”

“That’s my boy. It’s Petra, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

“What’s Petra?” Guy said, lowering himself onto the bench’s unforgiving wooden slats.

“My name, you twat.”

“Petra as in the
Blue Peter
dog?”

“No, as in the ancient city in Jordan. Petra ‘the rose-red city half as old as time.’ Which is from a poem.”

“I know. By John William Burgon. It’s about the only thing he’s famous for.”

“Not just a pretty face,” Petra said, and then kicked his shin with her steel-toecapped Doc Marten.

“Ouch! What did you do that for?”

“Petra the fucking
Blue Peter
dog,” she snorted. “Arsehole.”

Together, side by side, they watched the waves hurling themselves onto the shingle beach and shattering against the groynes. Seagulls stomped by, hunched and aggravated, the wind ruffling their feathers. The pain in Guy’s shin slowly subsided.

“If you’re such a smartypants,” Petra said, puffing out a plume of smoke, “how come you’re stuck here in the arse end of nowhere, working in a chippie? How come you’re not making a mint as a merchant banker or a stockbroker or writing the world’s greatest novel or something?”

“Long story.”

“I look like I’ve got somewhere else to be?”

“Is that another cue?”

“He’s learning.”

“Well, you could say this is the right place for me,” Guy told her. “Or you could say I’m here because it’s about as far away from all the bullshit as I can get.”

“What bullshit?”

“The bullshit of my life so far.”

“You’re running away from something. Hiding from something.”

“Sort of.”

“What?”

In reply, Guy said, “What about you? How come you’ve made here your home and you’re not up in London, going to the 100 Club by night and hanging out at Sex on the King’s Road by day?”

“Ooh, hark at you, professor of punk. Who says this is my home? Maybe I’m just passing through. And don’t think I haven’t noticed you avoiding my question.”

“My answer is I’m not prepared to talk about it.” He added, “Yet.”

“Mr Mystery. Well,
my
answer is I’ve sort of run away too. From a bloke I was seeing. Right bastard. His idea of fun was getting off his face and kicking the shit out of me.”

“A punk too?”

“Yeah, but a drunk and a druggie first and foremost. I loved him so much, which is why I stuck it out as long as I did. But when he nearly broke my arm one night, that was when the penny finally dropped. I knew I had to get out, otherwise next time he might kill me. And don’t make that face.”

“What face?”

“That sad goo-goo face. That feeling-sorry face. I don’t want your pity. He was a cunt, and I was a twat for letting him be such a cunt to me. I betrayed my own principles.” She shrugged. “You live and learn. You move on.”

“You want to go to the cinema?” Guy said abruptly, surprising himself.

“No, ta.”

“Okay.”

She grunted in frustration. “Don’t give up so easily, Guy. Never take no for a first answer when you ask a girl out. If she refuses three times in a row, then perhaps you should accept that she doesn’t fancy you. But otherwise, keep trying.”

“All right, so if I ask you a second time, you might say yes?”

“Give it a whirl.”

“You want to go to the cinema?”

“No.”

He was crestfallen.

Petra laughed. “Just teasing. Your expression! Priceless. Yes, let’s go to the cinema. There’s fuck all else to do in this dump, is there?”

T
HE TOWN’S CINEMA
was old and musty-smelling, with a leaking roof and seats whose stuffing crunched when you sat down. They went to a matinee showing of
Midnight Express
, which was all that was on, and afterwards Petra said, “Well, this clearly isn’t a date, because you just took me to the most gruelling, depressing film ever and now I want to slash my wrists,” but with a smile, because it clearly
was
a date. Then they went to the amusement arcade and shovelled ten-pence pieces into the Space Invaders machine. Petra was pretty good at the game, whereas Guy struggled to clear even a single screen.

As the sky darkened, they moved on to a pub, The Anchor, where Petra drew stares and the occasional snarky aside.

“Oy-oy, freak show’s in town,” someone muttered, while someone else said, “Why don’t you get in your spaceship and go back to the planet Zarg?”

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Guy asked her as they carried their drinks to a quiet corner table. “People making snide comments all the time?”

“If it did, would I dress like this?” she replied. “It’s just the look they object to, not me. And that’s because
they’re cowardly conformist wankers
.” She raised her voice loud enough so that everyone in the pub would know they were being referred to. Lowering it again, she said, “I hate sheep. People who follow unthinkingly, like this lot, with their jeans and their conservative attitudes and their complete lack of imagination.”

“Aren’t you a follower yourself? I mean of punk.”

“Ah, punk’s just a fashion statement. It’ll have its day and then something else will come along. Already there’s people in London dressing like the opposite of punk: frills and flounces and buccaneer boots. They all gather at the Blitz Club and Billy’s and dance to glam rock records. That’ll probably be the next wave, with bands writing songs that sound like glam but different, just like punk’s like rock-and-roll but different, and then there’ll be something else, and something else after that. I choose to be a punk but I won’t be one forever. I pick whatever suits my mindset at the time. People who follow trends slavishly, unthinkingly, just because it’s cool – they despise themselves. They have no self-worth. They get their identity from something outside themselves. Not me. Whatever I wear, I’m still me inside and that’ll never change.”

“Petra. From the Greek for ‘rock.’”

“Look, we already know you’re educated. No need to show off.”

“I think it suits you. You’re stable. Grounded. Solid. Like a rock, you won’t be worn down.”

“Are you using flattery to try and get into my knickers?” She peered at him over the rim of her lager glass.

“I don’t know,” he said cagily. “Is it working?”

“You might be better off telling me I’m pretty, not comparing me to a fucking bit of stone.”

“You
are
pretty. And the ‘rock’ thing really was meant as a compliment. I’ve known some flaky girls in my time.”

“Some rocks can be flaky.”

“Not the type you are.” Guy was beginning to wonder if anything he ever said to Petra would go unchallenged. Her personality was as spiky as her hair. For all that, he was enjoying the cut-and-thrust of the conversation. He didn’t even mind that she always seemed to win. “You’re... you’re granite.”

“I’ll jot that one down in my diary. ‘Dear diary, today a boy said I was granite. I really want to shag him now.’”

“Do you?”

“Buy me another pint and we’ll see.”

T
HEY STAGGERED TO
his bedsit. Petra mocked the state of the room, the mess of unlaundered clothes, the narrowness of the single bed. Then they kissed, they fumbled each other to nakedness, they fell onto the bed, they fucked as ardently and urgently as any two people ever had.

Afterwards, while Petra enjoyed a postcoital cigarette, Guy examined her body in detail. He hadn’t had a chance to in the throes of passion. She had small pert breasts, a smooth flat belly, wide generous hips, a tidy pubic thatch, and there on the inside of her left thigh...

Guy recoiled as if stung by a scorpion.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, Jesus,” he breathed. “What – what the hell is that?”

Petra looked down. “What? Oh, my tattoo, you mean.”

“Yes. Your fucking tattoo.” He sprang off the bed, backing away from her. He was trembling. His balls had clenched up to the size of broad beans.

“Guy, what’s got into you?”