Rule of Night (8 page)

‘Outside,' the landlord says crisply, grasping their elbows and pushing them towards the door. Kenny and the lad with greasy hair half-resist, still staring hard at each other, still murmuring threats under their breaths, being propelled reluctantly to the cold outer air and the slick-wet pavement and the lights gleaming through the haze of drizzle.

Fester closes in behind Kenny's back; Kenny's eyes don't betray a flicker as the transfer of the sharpened spindle takes place from hand to hand. He already has the broken half of a hacksaw blade in the back pocket of his Levis but he's not averse to consolidating his armoury. Also he has the boots with the reinforced toecaps and the chunky steel washers that fit snugly on to the fingers of his right hand. His shoulder bangs against the door, there's a glint of reflection from the massed bottles behind the bar, a shaft of cold air
touches his legs, the door-hinges creak, and the two of them are thrust into outer darkness.

The other's eyes are hidden in shadow but Kenny can remember them: blue slits beneath eyebrows that bridge the nose and meet in the middle: a naked animal hatred coming at him through the holes in the skull. Kenny slips his fingers through the washers; the spindle is partly concealed behind his back in the folds of his jacket. They tentatively circle round like two dogs sniffing each other before a fight.

‘You called my mate a nigger,' Kenny says. It is important not to let the cause of the dispute be forgotten. There has to be a reason; it must be spelled out and made to bear the weight of their mutual hatred. It must generate anger.

‘I said it to him, not you.'

‘Now you've got me.'

‘What's up, is he chicken?'

‘You've got me,' Kenny repeats. ‘So you'll never know, will you?'

‘Thinks he's a tough nut,' calls one of the lad's mates.

‘You're next,' Kenny says.

‘Have him, Neil.'

‘I'll fucking have him,' Neil says.

‘Come on then,' Kenny goads him. ‘Fucking come on then.'

‘Right.'

‘Right then.'

‘They're here,' a woman's voice says, and quick as magic a Panda car is at the kerb and three policemen are thrusting through the crowd, pushing bodies aside and reaching out. Kenny hits the lad with the greasy hair in the face with the row of washers, and runs. His collar is grabbed and he lashes out blindly with his boot, meeting no resistance. A blow from what seems a sledge-hammer lands on his ear and he feels himself going down, off-balance,
failing sideways, the hand still holding his collar. He's on the pavement amongst a lot of legs, squirming, and goes on all-fours through them, somebody or something heavy landing on his back; then off his knees and on to his feet and almost running into the wall before finding his bearings and clomping full-pelt towards the main road.

•    •    •

‘You could have taken him,' said Fester, propping his feet on the seat opposite. For the sake of expediency they had decided to catch the first train back to Manchester.

‘I could have taken him but for the rozzers,' Kenny said. ‘He was thick as pigshit.'

‘You got him a good one,' Arthur said, grinning, showing the gaps in his teeth.

‘Who?'

‘The greaser.'

‘Yeh.' Kenny put his hand to his left ear, which felt as though it was encased in rubber. And so tender he could hardly bear to touch it. ‘I could have taken that fucking copper as well,' he said intensely.

‘He was a big bastard,' Crabby said. ‘Broad.'

‘On his own I could have taken him.'

‘What a dump though,' Crabby said, wiping the condensation off the window and trying to look out at the dark rushing countryside.

‘Chaaawley,' Arthur said.

‘What was the name of that place?'

‘What?'

‘That pub.'

‘Dunno.'

‘Royal Oak or summat,' Shortarse said.

‘No, that was the big place we passed. Didn't go in.'

Fester raised himself off the seat and released a long, slow, full-bodied fart, his eyes closed and his lips compressed in a small beatific smile. The ensuing laughter was mingled with complaints and obscene abuse. Then Arthur let one go – a rasper – and they were all at it, and soon it was a contest, the idea being to see who could release the most in a given period. After the first round, Crabby, Fester, Shortarse and Kenny were leading, all managing to produce ten or more, and the others dropped out. In the second round Crabby's energy and wind failed him and he could barely achieve three, and pathetic squeaks they were; Fester started well but fizzled out towards the end of the thirty-second period, and so it was up to Kenny and Shortarse to compete against each other in the final round to decide who deserved the title of ‘King Arse'. Arthur announced the start of the thirty seconds and the chant began as the two finalists twisted and strained and contorted themselves to extract the maximum emissions from the dwindling supply.

‘… seven … eight… nine… ten … eleven …'

It was neck and neck, fart for fart, and the total rose to fifteen … sixteen … seventeen … where it stopped in apparent stalemate, the two contestants bending and doubling-up in a frantic effort to produce the winner. With seven seconds to go Shortarse managed yet one more.

‘Eighteen!' went the chant.

His face nearly blue, Kenny equalised, knowing his underpants were caked but refusing to be beaten. Arthur counted off the remaining seconds. Shortarse was done for, and it looked as if the contest would result in a dead-heat, until with a last desperate contortion Kenny released a low-pitched bubbling sound which was generally acknowledged to be legitimate and allowable.

‘Nineteen!'

Kenny flopped back on to the seat, triumphant but physically uncomfortable. The other passengers in the coach sat facing the front, their faces expressionless, their feet positioned carefully together so that they wouldn't obtrude into the aisle.

Rochdale Observer, 6 March 1974

JEALOUSY MOTIVE

OF ‘CLOCKWORK

ORANGE' ATTACK

A TEENAGE JEALOUSY
led to a Rochdale schoolboy being lured to spare ground where he was beaten with chains and hit on the head by a bottle, magistrates heard yesterday.

Two boys, both aged fifteen, were put under supervision for two years by Rochdale Juvenile Court, and a third boy, also fifteen, was remanded to the care of the local authority for twenty-one days until he can be placed in a remand home.

The boy's mother told magistrates his behaviour at home was terrible.

She added: ‘He thinks nothing of hitting me or the other children. I can't cope with him any more.

‘I have an awful time when he is in the house and I am glad when he is out. He has also hit his grandma who is an old woman.'

The father of one boy said he had not noticed the vicious streak in his son before, and the father of the other boy said he could not understand this ‘Clockwork Orange-type of thing'.

All three boys admitted wounding a boy, who, said Inspector Frank Jones, prosecuting, had left home with a friend to go to a dance.

They were met from the bus by the three youths who chatted with them.

Suddenly, the three boys pulled out metal chains and started to hit the boy on the head and body.

He tried to run away but one of the boys picked up a glass bottle and hurled it at his bead. He was wounded by the bottle which broke on impact.

His friend tried to intervene and he was also attacked with the chains.

One of the attackers told police that the boy they had first attacked had been going out with a girl his friend wanted to go out with. The attack had been planned.

KENNY KNEW THE OLD MAN WOULD HALF-MURDER HIM IF
he found out he'd been given the push from Haigh's. It was the third job in eleven months Kenny had been fired from: he had to keep up the pretence of working there until he found somewhere else – somewhere with as much if not more money than he'd been getting at Haigh's – and only then would he dare to break the news. The old man went berserk whenever Kenny was out of a job and made life hell on earth. But there wouldn't be much point in pretending if he couldn't give the old lady the usual sum on a Friday night, laying down the crisp oncers on the kitchen table; at least they didn't ask to see his wage-packet any more.

Kenny lay amidst the crumpled sheets and the torn-up wrappers of a Bounty bar and a Walnut Whip, staring blankly at the ceiling and biting his nails. The top pane of the window was open and the faint aroma of curry and spices wafted in from the landing above. Where was he to get the money? He thought of calling round to see Jack in the dinner-hour and touching him for a few quid, but even as the idea took shape he knew it was useless. Jack was a married man with kids and a mortgage and was scraping to make ends meet as it was. There had been occasions in the past, getting towards the end of the week, when Kenny had slipped Jack half-a-bar. That didn't leave many possibilities. His mates rarely had anything left themselves after beer and fags and a few games of crib, and even if they had he couldn't see them being generous enough to have a whip-round for his benefit. The only people who might be willing to help him out (and who could be trusted to keep their mouths shut) were Jimmy and Doll. There again, Kenny realised, they weren't exactly rolling in it. Together they must have
been earning a fair screw, but no sooner was it in his pocket than Jimmy was handing it over to the landlord of the Dicken Green, propping up the bar seven nights a week. Now maybe if Doll had managed to put some by – wakes money, perhaps, or for some new clothes – she might be able to lend him, say, a tenner, which would be enough to see him through another seven days, and during that time he could get fixed up somewhere else. Jobs weren't plentiful but then Kenny wasn't fussy: if they paid twelve or over he'd grab their hand off.

As for Haigh's, he knew who was to blame for getting him the sack. Diarrhoea Features. The foreman would have reported the machine breaking down but it was that bastard Tripp who would have had words with the works manager and somehow or other put the blame on Kenny. Christ, a motor can burn out at any time, there's no telling when it might happen. Kenny felt a bitter injustice at his dismissal; they had conspired to get rid of him, Tripp, the foreman, the works manager, and probably even Doris and Mo. He didn't trust any of them, never had. All along he had sensed their animosity, a desire to do him down. He almost felt sorry for himself, as a child might when told by its friends that it can't join in their game, but the self-pity was submerged in still deeper and unfathomable hatred. He plotted with himself how he could get even, worked out elaborate plans that ranged from waiting for Tripp one dark and moonless night in an alley to sneaking into the place one Sunday and burning it down. In his mind he saw the flames, and Tripp was in them, trapped under a fallen beam, screaming, his black hair singed to the bone.

It had been the same wherever he had worked. Before long they found an excuse – or rather invented an excuse – to get rid of him. Kenny knew the reason: it was because he was young and they were old. They were past it, over the hill, their own lives finished and empty and done with, while his was just beginning. They
couldn't bear to think that he had the world at his feet and that their world was dying. Kenny knew this for a certainty: for the simple reason that he knew the score and they were dead thick.

But the problem of the money remained. He had to get some, if only enough to last the week, otherwise the old man would go spare. Brian was like a mate to him at times – they had been out drinking together, for instance – but if one thing was guaranteed to drive him wild it was Kenny being jobless. In one respect this was hard to understand because as a young man himself Brian had had more jobs than Kenny had had hot dinners. Now he worked, bowed down by the responsibility of a wife, two kids, a home to keep up, and the hire-purchase payments on the living-room carpet, the cooker, and the new stereo radiogram with its smooth teak finish that he never bothered to listen to. His frivolous days were behind him; respectability was here to stay.

It would have to be Auntie Doll, Kenny decided, she was the best bet. He would set off for work as usual on Monday morning and walk up to Kirkholt and by that time – then he remembered that Doll worked and would be out of the house, which meant spending all day strolling about and killing time till she came home in the evening. He didn't even have enough money to go to the flicks: he looked on top of the cabinet at the side of his bed and counted seven and a half pence. The entire business suddenly struck him as being hopeless; he might as well own up and get it over and done with. He wasn't going to get any money, from Doll or anybody. An impossible scheme came into his head: he would break into Haigh's and rob the safe. He knew the layout of the place, where the main office was, and the exact location of the large old-fashioned safe with the brass handle. All he had to do was…

Kenny's brain stopped functioning at this point. It went as far as the works, the office, the safe, and then it stopped. His mind went as blank as the ceiling. There were times when he really didn't
comprehend the world he lived in: when it became very confused and tangled-up, like a dream or a nightmare. What had seemed simple became complicated; he couldn't seem to get his thoughts into any logical or meaningful order and he felt that life was beating him down, that somehow he was being cheated.

His mother came into the room without knocking. It was Sunday night and she was all dolled up for the Kirkholt Social Club where Bernard Manning was drawing them in from miles around.

‘We're off. We'll be late, so see Kat gets to bed.' Her tinted hair was swept up at the back and she jangled with cheap jewellery.