by Max Schaefer
He pushes round bent almost double to the side of the cinema and follows the pavement, tracing it ape-like with his hands, as it climbs to the Mitre. The pub has closed, but he sees an empty cider bottle in the gutter and picks it up. He swings it hard at the Mitre’s window, which cracks a little but doesn’t break. The bottle doesn’t break either, so he smashes it on the pavement instead. Then holding it tight by the neck he goes through the little gap round the side of the pub, into the church gardens. He can hear more squad cars now. He heads across the grass away from the main road, and is about to round the corner into a row of houses when someone shouts his name.
Dave is twenty feet behind, running to catch up. He’s limping slightly and there is blood down his white top, a lot of it. ‘Cheers,’ he tells Tony, who waits to let him catch his breath but Dave shakes his head: ‘Keep going, fucking load of coppers back there.’ So they head fast down the street, the sirens and the noise of the fight fading with distance. Tony asks what happened to Steve, and Dave says he doesn’t know. The houses are quiet, their ground-floor curtains drawn. ‘You all right?’ he asks Dave, ‘You’re fucking covered in blood,’ and Dave says, ‘Yeah, some cunt had a nosebleed on me.’
They zigzag through the streets, not saying much, the world trembling a little at its limits, edged with light that threatens to spill through. They are on a little hump over the railway, walking in the middle of the road, when out of nowhere they hear an engine and brightness crashes down from behind so their shadows sprout hugely before them. With a wild screech something fantastically heavy punches the back of Tony’s legs and throws him forward. The tarmac zooms at his face and he intercepts it with his right arm, the cider bottle, unconsciously jettisoned, shattering somewhere close by. The impact scrapes skin from his wrist and forearm, which begin to sting as he scrambles to his feet. Dave must have been hit harder because he is lying a good few feet ahead. Tony goes to help him up, Dave muttering ‘Fuck’ in repeating shock and grasping Tony’s arm for support with real need.
They face the car, stationary on the crest of the hump. Dave can stand by himself so Tony goes first. The driver, indistinct behind his headlights, watches them approach and raises an apologetic hand. As Tony nears the window the car tries suddenly to accelerate, then stalls. It rolls feebly forward. The driver brakes and restarts the ignition. Tony says with outrage, ‘Fucking—’ and leaps to open the door, behind which eyes widen beneath a turban and a hand scrabbles too slowly for the lock.
‘Fuck are you doing?’ demands Tony.
The man looks fifty, maybe more. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he offers. He cannot stop staring, trying to gauge the catastrophe.
‘Christ,’ says Dave, catching up. ‘It’s a fucking Paki.’
The man says: ‘I don’t want no trouble.’ It’s not clear if he actually talks like this or is trying to ape their language for sympathy.
‘Fuck out of the car,’ says Tony.
‘Oh no,’ the man says, ‘please. I have a daughter who is waiting for me.’
Tony sighs and mutters, ‘Cunt’ He grabs the beard and pulls. The man’s hands pat Tony’s arm ineffectually, miming resistance but unwilling to fight. The head bends back, the body tries to follow the beard, the hands fumble for purchase on the seat. The man is angled comically towards the opening like a jack-in-the-box, tethered by Tony’s grip and the seat belt. Dave says, ‘Come on Tony do the cunt,’ and by way of support mounts the bonnet of the car with fast-returning energy and kicks in the windshield. It hangs together in a sag: a few bits scatter over the dashboard and driver, who is grabbing at the side of his chair and the handbrake, desperate to stay inside. Tony seizes a fistful of turban with his free hand and yanks harder.
Now, whether by accident or inspiration, the driver releases the handbrake and the car rolls forward. Dave jumps off, stumbling where he lands. Tony, still holding the man’s head, is pulled alongside as the car picks up speed. In rage and frustration he lets go the turban and, pulling the man’s beard high until his head is half out of the gap and Tony’s hand clear of it, slams the door as hard as he can with his boot. There is a muffled crack and he lets go.
They follow the car down the slope. As the road flattens the car veers left until it ploughs into another parked by the kerb. When they reach it the driver is moving slightly. Dave pulls open the door. Perhaps the padding of his turban cushioned the impact, but there is still a long deep cut down the right ride of the driver’s head. He is bleeding heavily behind the ear, one eye has filled with blood, and there is jawbone visible. He is mumbling something that sounds like ‘No but I rather’ and his hands are pawing at the steering wheel, sliding across its surface. Dave takes a wide rejuvenated kick at his head: the driver spits blood and twitches. Tony leans matter-of-factly in, pops the seatbelt and hauls him into the road. Some lingering consciousness is trying to raise the man on his elbows, so Tony steps on his chest with his left boot and presses him into the tarmac. He leans down for the turban and roughly unravels it. Silence feels inappropriate during this fiddly process, so he says, ‘Hit and run will you? You fucking cunt. You fucking old Paki,’ and so on. The man’s turban is coming away in a wide ribbon, his long hair underneath matting with sweat and blood. He is making a low noise that occasionally sounds like it might bubble into language.
‘Let’s cut his hair,’suggests Dave.
‘Got any scissors?’
‘I’ll look in the car.’
Tony waits. He kicks the man and looks about him at the silent houses.
Dave is rifling through the glove compartment. ‘Prestige Cabs,’ he calls.
‘What?’
‘Prestige Cabs. Could have fooled me with this old banger.’
‘Found any scissors?’
‘I’ll check the boot.’
‘Just a knife would do.’
‘You stop that,’ calls a woman in a shrill quaver from some upstairs window. ‘I’ve called the police.’
Tony looks up. ‘Yeah well,’ he shouts, ‘thanks for telling us you dozy cow. Come on,’ he tells Dave, ‘let’s go.’
Dave kicks the driver twice more in the ribs and head. As they head down the road, walking quickly but not running, he says: ‘Wish we’d cut his hair off.’
‘Yeah it was a nice idea.’
‘I hate missing opportunities.’ Dave is chatty with adrenalin. ‘Prestige Cabs. Not bloody using them. Bastard nearly killed us.’
‘And then he only fucking tries to drive off.’
‘Jesus though he must have been pissing himself when we got up.’
‘Wished he hadn’t braked probably.’
‘Oh my goodness gracious I have run over some skinheads.’ There are sirens approaching. Tony says, ‘Get down.’ They crouch behind an ice-cream van. Dave says in a loud whisper, ‘It was beautiful though when you had his beard up like that. Fucking hilarious,’ and Tony smiles and shakes his head at the picture. The police car passes, making the houses behind Dave pulse in electric blue. When it has gone Dave starts to move and Tony says: ‘Give it a minute.’
‘You think they’ll come back?’
‘Just give it a minute.’
They wait in silence. He hears Dave’s breathing slow. Tony’s bollock is aching again and the way he is crouching makes his hurt back twinge. He thinks again of the fight, the advancing black swept from his view and Nicky reaching down for him. Saved my life, he thinks, sentimentally, or maybe mutters it out loud because Dave flashes him a look. Tony frowns at the pavement, gathering himself. ‘Got the time on you?’ he says.
‘Just gone half-twelve.’
‘Where are you heading?’
‘Down Plumstead.’
‘They’ll be out looking for a while. I’m just a couple of streets over. You can wait at mine for a bit if you want.’
They do not encounter anyone on the short walk. When they enter the flat, Tony winces a bit at the smell and regrets leaving the washing-up again. Dave asks: ‘Do you live by yourself?’
&nbs
p; ‘Yeah. What about you?’
‘Yeah with my mum.’
‘Is she all right or is she a bit…’
‘She’s all right most of the time. Free food and all that.’
‘Can’t complain can you. Fancy a beer?’
‘Cheers.’
Tony heads for the kitchen: ‘Don’t think I’ve got any cold.’
Dave calls: ‘Can I read your Patriot ? I’ve not seen this issue.’
‘Go ahead.’ Tony returns with the beers. ‘Rejects all right?’
‘You got the album? What’s it like?’
He nods: ‘It’s fucking great.’
They read and listen, drink and smoke. From his bed, Tony watches Dave poring over British Patriot. ‘I can’t believe all this with Rhodesia,’ says Dave.
‘Nearly went out there a few months ago.’
‘What to fight?’
‘Good thing I didn’t. Been a bit fucking late.’
‘You never know. You might have turned the tide.’
They laugh. Tony says: ‘Your mum be OK with that blood?’
‘She’ll be asleep.’
‘Have a bath if you want. Might have a spare T-shirt and all.’
‘Oh yeah please.’
‘Go for it. There’s a towel in there. Don’t know about hot water.’
Dave unlaces his boots and takes them off. He slips his braces from his shoulders and pulls off his Fred Perry. Underneath, his torso is pale and thin, his chest sparse with strawberry hair. There are no wounds: the blood on the shirt really is not his.
He undoes the waist button of his jeans, looks up at Tony and grins. ‘Fucking kill for a bath.’ He picks up his beer, goes into the bathroom, and closes the door. Tony hears water running. After a minute Dave comes out with a towel around his waist. ‘Fucking look at that,’ he says, and hoists it to display the backs of his legs. He has surprisingly thick calves and thighs, which bloom red where the car hit, just above the knee.
‘Jesus,’ says Tony.
‘Cunt,’ says Dave, and closes the door again.
On the record Stinky sings:
‘Where the hell is Babylon?
I’ve heard it’s a lot of fun.
Can I get there on my bike
Or straight up the M1?’
When Dave comes out, Tony hands him a Sham 69 T-shirt. ‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘but it’s all I have clean. Which is because I never wear the fucking thing.’
Dave laughs and puts it on. ‘How do I look?’
‘It’s a bit big to be honest. But it’s better than Dracula’s bib you had on.’
‘I’ll have Mum wash it.’
‘Keep it. I’m not going to wear it.’
‘No you’re all right.’
Tony nods. ‘You OK getting home? You can kip here if you want.’
‘Won’t give her the satisfaction. Cheers though. And for the bath and all that. It was good to meet you Tony. See you around yeah?’
He holds his hand out and they shake. When Tony has closed the door and changed the record, he lies back on his bed and finishes his beer.
Mr Nine to Five
I couldn’t be sure it was Nicky who planned the attack on the Odeon, but the evidence seemed strong. It took place within days of his conviction for the bus-stop incident, and his authorship of the train ambush six months later — with its similar hallmarks — was not in doubt. Besides, Nicky was a Leader Guard in the local British Movement: and according to a skin involved in the attack, it was a Leader Guard who had organized ‘the do at the Odeon’.
I found this claim in the South East London Mercury of 19 March 1981. ‘John’, sixteen and a skinhead since he was seven, told the paper there were 200 BM members in Greenwich, Woolwich and Plumstead. He talked of unarmed combat training in Oxleas Wood and Shooters Hill, and members in the Territorial Army who knew how to use guns. They recruited at football matches and schools. They had ‘something planned’ for the local MP.
‘I don’t believe all those Jews died,’ he added. ‘It’s just a con.’
There was more to read, but the place was closing: a librarian marshalled the stragglers, and seeing her approach I closed the paper and drew a dumb-show line under my notes. Outside, Colindale Avenue swept up from the city before me. Even in rush hour, the traffic here was sparse and fast-moving, and the prospect of crossing held the suburban threat of real impact. I paused in the rain, wondering what to do. My plan to suggest a film to Adam had been pre-empted by his lunchtime text: Back late if at all. If no word by lunch tomoro pls log cops into my gaydar acct! xxxA.
I could just go home — it was an attractive option in this weather: pasta, television. But the thought of bed put me off. I could never settle when Adam was on these rendezvous: each possible position (facing the wall or the entrance; hugging a pillow or face-up; my underpants off or on; the door closed or open) seemed loaded with unintended meaning. Better to stay out for as long as possible: until he was back, or I was too tired to care. And why should his night out cancel mine?
On the tube platform, where a young couple were pressed against the wall earnestly necking, at whom I smiled to demonstrate something obscure to me and probably distasteful to them, it was announced that a suspect package had closed Euston, and there were severe delays. I sat on a bench while the station filled slowly with people and irritation. Every few minutes the news was repeated, and its announcer became more self-conscious. He began to parody, and improvise sarcastic clauses: ‘As a small number of you may already be aware…’
In the end, after twenty-five minutes, a train did roll warily up, heavy with people scowling at us through the glass. We were packed in further at Hendon, and again at Brent Cross: I imagined Adam ringing some unfamiliar doorbell on an East London estate while in the courtyard behind him yelling kids looped in circles on their bikes. An older face, a tracksuit, grey hair on muscled arms. ‘Leave your bag in the hallway.’ A set of stairs. Just out of Golders Green the train heaved and braked: the mass of bodies compressed, then loosened; enervated machinery exhaled. By the time we reached it Euston had reopened, and I emerged among commuters breathing beer from their forced hiatus. I had missed the film, but it was on again at nine.
Tottenham Court Road funnelled the dregs of bad weather like a giant storm drain. The rain was now a mere dribble of grime that spattered my glasses so the headlights on the impatient herd of traffic seemed to slip and slide. I passed Spearmint Rhino, Habitat, Paperchase. A huge figure reared out of Store Street and I flinched: he asked for directions to Russell Square, but when I told him he shook his head. ‘That’s not right,’ he said, ‘that can’t be right,’ and strode up in the direction I’d come from. When I looked back he was asking someone else.
I killed a few minutes in Borders, where with no energy for anything new I checked on authors I had already read. They were still present, still apparently being published. I pulled a few off the shelf to see which printing they were, and flicked through vaguely remembered text. Philip’s friend Mike was poorly represented by just two recent books: I put one face-out at the front of an adjacent stack.
By seven-fifteen I was on Shaftesbury Avenue, heading for the little Chinese café near the bus stop. A tall, slim boy in jeans and T-shirt stood in the window among hanging poultry, before a chopping block and simmering vat. As I entered he unhooked a piece of pork from the wall and cut off a section, which he sliced with a speed that belied his listless expression, the cleaver oscillating up and down. I ate a portion of the meat with rice at a shared table, listening to the old couple beside me. They were catching up after a long time, or had not previously met; perhaps he was visiting, because he had a strong European accent, while she, much taller than him, with crisply bunned white hair, spoke with an old-fashioned precision that was marked with the curious habit of ending assertions with a little ‘nah?’, as if to make sure she was being followed. They had ordered a cliché of a meal from the menu of the restaurant downstairs: spread between them were crispy du
ck and pancakes, sweet-and-sour pork, and vegetables in a transparent gloop. The gaucheness of all this contrasted with their conversation, which was quite alluringly urbane. When I tuned in, the man, who I began to imagine was some poet or painter, was recounting certain ideas about womanliness, ascribed to a figure I couldn’t identify. These ideas, almost shockingly essentialist to my ears, and focused on sexual arousal and the metaphysical enigma of the female orgasm, were received by his dinner partner with perfectly composed curiosity, and little nods of assent between mouthfuls of deep-fried pork. After some time the man concluded his account and said, as if it followed: ‘But you are no longer in the theatre?’, to which she replied: ‘Oh, I haven’t been on stage in forty years.’ At that point the waitress brought the bill and I was distracted, but as I stood I heard her telling him, in response to something else, ‘I was in Paris once with Montgomery Clift…’
At the French House, where I stood at the bar with a Breton cider, the usual collection of freaks was on display. Across from me a tall, very dark-skinned black man with tiny eyes and a precise moustache, wearing a herringbone jacket and canary-yellow scarf with little dots, was lecturing a skimpily dressed blonde woman of a certain age: I imagined her in the same place, forty years earlier, a teenager in a similar, slimmer outfit, dutifully furnishing the same attention to a series of older men, journalists and the odd academic, in whose flats in Judd Street and Dolphin Square she learned how to do sex properly. This was not so bad a place to spend an hour. You could be comfortably alone, unlike in the gay bars round the corner, where solitariness, people assumed, or I always felt they did, only signalled your desire to be shot of it. Here you could look at the framed photos with real curiosity, not feigned to ward off a possible approach, or half listen to a conversation and smile at something in it without that smile being an apparent bid.