Pantheon 00 - Age of Godpunk (26 page)

They entered, all nine of them, with their crash helmets tucked under their arms, bumping tables ‘accidentally’ with their hips, kicking chair legs. Mr Fernandinho treated them diplomatically, which was out of character for him. He addressed them as ‘gentlemen’ and enquired politely how he might help.

“Cod and chips all round,” said the tallest, skinniest Mod, whose parka bore Union Jack patches, a large RAF roundel on the back, and The Jam’s logo, drawn on the sleeve painstakingly in marker pen. His short centre-parted haircut was an almost exact replica of Paul Weller’s.

“Guy, you heard the gentlemen,” said Mr Fernandinho. “Look lively.”

While Guy fried the fish, there was more laddish rowdiness from the Mods. A sugar dispenser crashed to the floor, shattering to pieces. Mr Fernandinho hurried over with brush and dustpan, saying it was nothing, these things happened, never mind, no harm done. Guy just counted down the seconds until the meals were ready and the Mods were gone. The young men had brought an ugly mood with them into the chip shop – along with the smells of unwashed parka and diesel fumes – and he couldn’t wait for them to take it away again.

“What are you looking at, twat?” one of them demanded, scowling.

“Nothing,” said Guy. “Food’s almost ready. That’ll be eleven pounds twenty, all in.”

“Eleven quid twenty,” the Mod said to his friends. “Who’s got cash? Anyone?”

Heads were shaken. There were smirking, insolent looks all round. The Mods had never had any intention of paying.

“Tell you what, gents,” said Mr Fernandinho. “First-time customers get a free meal.”

“What you saying, you little brown shrimp?” snarled the tall Mod, whom Guy had to assume was the leader of the pack. “You think we can’t afford your crappy grub? You think we’re a bunch of tramps or something?”

“Not at all,” said Mr Fernandinho, retreating back behind the serving counter. “It’s my usual offer. Open to everyone.”

“Here,” said Guy, placing the last of nine newspaper-wrapped parcels on the countertop. “All ready.
Bon appétit
.”

“Ooh-la-la!” said the Mods’ leader archly. “‘Bon appy-tee.’ Very sophisticated they are in this town.”

“Why’s it such a fucking shithole then?” one of the gang remarked. “Nobody around. Rubbish little beach. Hasn’t even got a fucking pier. Whoever heard of a seaside town doesn’t have a fucking pier?”

“Come on, let’s go,” said another of them. “I’m ruddy starving.”

The Mods gathered up their meals and, to the great relief of Guy and Mr Fernandinho, made for the door.

By terrible coincidence, that was when Petra arrived.

She often dropped by, usually during Guy’s break hour, so the two of them could go and get a bite to eat or else just sit and chat while she had a cigarette. Mr Fernandinho still didn’t approve of her, but knew he had to put up with her. He was loath to ban her from the chip shop in case his best and only employee took umbrage and resigned.

Guy spotted Petra through the window, saw how the Mods reacted to the sight of her, and knew instantly how things were going to pan out. It had the crushing inevitability of a traffic accident, a juggernaut on a collision course with a car, nothing anyone could do to prevent it happening.

“Hello, what’s this?” said the Mods’ leader, looming over Petra. “A fucking human hedgehog.”

The others cackled.

Petra ducked her head and skirted round the gang. Guy sent up a small prayer of thanks that for once she had elected to keep her mouth shut.

Then one of the Mods grabbed her arm.

“Here, darling,” he said and made smoochy noises. “How about a snog? I don’t normally fancy your sort, but for you I’ll make an exception.”

Guy began to move around the counter, picking up a mop as he went, the first weapon that came to hand. Mr Fernandinho waylaid him. “No. Not wise.”

“Sod that,” Guy said, brushing his boss aside. “I have to help her.”

Petra looked up at the Mod gripping tightly on her forearm. “Let go of me,” she said, coming across as remarkably calm.

“Snog first.”

“I’d rather kiss a dog’s arse, you tosser.”

A couple of the Mods chortled. “That’s funny,” one said. “The last thing Graham kissed
was
a dog’s arse.”

Graham rounded on his colleague. “Shut it, you nob.” He turned back to Petra. “In that case, how about a fuck? I’ve heard about you punk birds. You’re slags. Gagging for it all the time. I’ll do you, only it’ll have to be from behind so’s I don’t have to look at all them safety pins and whatnot, ’cause they’re right off-putting.”

“How are you going to manage that with nuts the size of a football?” Petra asked.

“I’m sorry, you what?”

“I said...”

And she kneed him in the groin.

Graham the Mod let out a wheezing gasp and sank to the ground, clutching himself between the legs.

Petra spun round and headed for the chip shop doorway. Guy was nearly there, the mop brandished like a quarterstaff.

“Get inside! Quick!” he urged her. As soon as she was across the threshold he would lock and bolt the door, then phone the police.

She almost made it.

The gang leader got in her way and brought her down with a punch to the face. As Petra fell, she made a sound halfway between a shriek and a groan. Guy propelled himself through the doorway, not caring what might happen next, not even thinking about his own safety. He rammed the mop at the Mod like a lance, only to find that in all the excitement he was holding it with the head forwards. The clump of thick cotton strings had almost no effect on the Mod, other than pissing him off.

“Seriously?” he said, glancing down at the mop then back up at Guy. “You arsehole.”

He snatched the mop out of Guy’s grasp, snapped the handle in two across his thigh, and tossed both halves aside. Then he loosed off a roundhouse that laid Guy flat.

Guy had never been hit so hard before, not even when the three bullies had beaten him up at Scarsworth Hall. He rolled on the pavement, unmanned by the impact and the searing pain. He couldn’t get up. He just wanted to curl into a foetal ball and never be hit again.

Sadly, the Mods felt differently. They started raining down kicks and stamps on him. Guy’s flailing hands seized hold of a foot and he tried to flip its owner over, but another of the Mods booted his elbow and his arm went numb and he had to let go. He could dimly hear Petra screaming, telling the Mods to stop, leave her boyfriend alone. Through the forest of kicking legs he saw her snatch up a discarded crash helmet and swing it at the gang leader’s head. The man was hardly fazed; he evidently had a pretty thick skull. He swivelled round and belted Petra in the belly.

The blow bent her double. As she sank to her knees, heaving for breath, the Mod grabbed a handful of her hair spikes and began dragging her. Petra scrabbled for purchase with her heels as he hauled her round the side of the chip shop, into the narrow alleyway that ran between it and the seaside souvenirs emporium next door. Guy scrambled frantically after her on all fours, but a toecap came up under into his midriff and he was sent flying over onto his side. He sprawled in the gutter, winded, paralysed with agony, while the Mods hurried off laughing to join their leader in the alleyway.

The sounds Guy heard then – the tearing of clothes, Petra’s rasping screeches of protest, the Mods’ inane chuckling – would haunt him for many days to come. He peered up and down the street. It was deserted. Where was everyone? Why wasn’t anyone doing anything? Where were the fucking police? Surely someone must have called them by now.

With a Herculean effort, he raised himself to his knees. He spied one half of the broken mop handle nearby. He reached for it, at the same time pushing himself fully upright. The world teetered. The road seemed to rise and fall beneath him. He walked. Every step was a battle, as though he were aboard a ship pitching up and down in a storm. Yet he staggered on.

In the alleyway, most of the Mods were gathered in a knot, shoulder to shoulder, looking on. Beyond them, the gang leader was crouched over Petra, his jeans down, pumping away at her from the rear. Petra lay prone on the sordid brick floor of the alleyway. Her battered, bloodied face wore a look of numb resignation, her mouth hanging loose with disgust. Her whole body jerked each time the Mod thrust into her.

The other Mods were agog, mesmerised by the act of rape, so much so that they barely registered as Guy elbowed his way through. It was only when he reached the front that they realised he wasn’t one of their own kind, and by then it was too late.

Guy raised the mop handle above his head with the splintered end pointing downwards. He drove it, hard as he could, into the gang leader’s back, using the roundel on his parka as a target.

Bullseye.

The Mod spasmed as though electrified. He tumbled away from Petra, his erect, shit-stained cock flapping wildly. He tried reaching for the mop handle spearing him from behind, but couldn’t pull it out. Eventually he collapsed against a dustbin, choking and mewling.

The
nee-naw
,
nee-naw
of a panda car siren skirled above the rooftops, growing louder. One of the Mods yelled, “Fuck, it’s the fuzz!” and they all fled, haring to their scooters.

Guy didn’t give a toss about them any more. He crawled over to Petra. There was blood leaking from between her buttocks. He took off his jacket and draped it over her, and he stayed there, hugging her to him, sobbing, until a police officer found them.

A
T THE HOSPITAL,
Petra lay unconscious, sedated. She had had to have surgery, five stitches, but the prognosis was good. There was no reason why she shouldn’t make a full physical recovery.

Guy’s injuries were seen to, too. He sported some atrocious contusions and abrasions but, aside from pain and stiffness, he was fine. Nothing broken or ruptured.

The Mod he had stabbed was also there, in the intensive care ward. The doctors were unsure if the man would walk again. The mop handle had partly severed his spinal nerve. “Frankly, if he’s left a cripple,” a consultant confided to Guy, “it’s no more than the bastard deserves.”

When Guy had finished giving his statement to a detective sergeant, he was allowed to go free. He stayed by Petra’s bedside through the night until dawn. He didn’t sleep a wink.

It would be fair to say that that long, lonely vigil was a pivotal moment in Guy’s life. He thought again and again about the Mods’ vicious, mindless assault. He thought about tribes and factions, confrontation and hatred. He thought about his father, dead now for over a decade, victim of the worst kind of irony, murdered while on a mission to broker peace. He thought about the bigger picture, the blocs the world was divided into, the ever-present threat of nuclear obliteration, the insanity of the superpowers’ doctrine of mutually assured destruction. He thought about individuals, who only wanted peace, and collectives, who seemed hell bent on war, a seemingly intractable paradox.

Come the morning, he had arrived at a turning point. A decisive moment.

He went in search of a pay phone.

He didn’t have a great deal of change on him, but that didn’t matter. He dialled 100.

“Operator. How may I help?”

“Yes, I’d like to make a reverse charge call please,” Guy said.

“What number to?”

“It’s an oh-one London number.” He reeled off seven digits.

“And who shall I say is calling?”

“Guy Lucas.”

The distant burr of a phone ringing. Finally, a click of connection.

“Hello? This is the operator. I have a call for you from a Guy Lucas. Will you accept the charge?”

Silence. Then a grumbled, “Very well.”

“Putting you through now, sir,” the operator said chirpily to Guy.

“Alastor?” Guy said into the receiver. “It’s your stepson. I’d like to talk.”

“Guy,” said Wylie. “I’m not sure you and I have much to say to one another.”

“Please, hear me out.”

“Do you know what time it is? I happen to have been up half the night trying to sort out this bloody public sector pay chaos. We’re in for a wretched bloody winter if this nonsense carries on much longer.”

“It is early, and I apologise for that.”

“Hmm. Well, that’s something, I suppose,” said Wylie, partly mollified. “An apology. Are you after your mother? She’s still asleep upstairs.”

“No, it’s you I want,” Guy said.

“Curiouser and curiouser. Well? What is it you’d like to talk about?”

“Me. Us. The future.
My
future.”

A pause, then Wylie said, “Interesting. Do go on.”

2013

G
UY
L
UCAS SAT
back in the plush leather back seat of the Jaguar XJ Sentinel with a sigh and folded his hands across his belly. Through his silk shirt, he could feel a roll of flab like a lifebelt, quivering with the vibration of the idling engine. He was softer around the middle these days, no question. His wife kept hinting that he should lose some weight, and a couple of his aides and advisers actively nagged him to do so. It wasn’t good image control to appear bulky and
contented
. People might get the wrong idea.