‘What’s he doing in there, with a plastic bag and no clothes.’
Johnny tossed the empty plastic bag over the top of the curtain. ‘Give us something to try on then.’
Jake said, ‘I’m his fashion consultant.’
He selected a tight red dress and a pair of wedge-heeled slingbacks. He threw the dress over the curtain rail and pushed the shoes underneath. ‘There you go Johnny. Knock us dead.’
Johnny said, ‘Thanks.’ A moment later, after he realized what he’d got, he said: ‘Jake, I been meaning to ask, you a puff or what?’
But when he danced out of the changing-room, he was wearing everything. The dress poured emptily where his breasts should have been and his heel hung a half-inch out of the back of the shoes but everything pretty much fitted. Johnny wiggled over to the front of the shop and back.
‘This is it, the real me.’
Jake said, ‘You’re liberated, mate.’
He asked the price.
Clare totted it up: thirty quid.
‘You got the shoes in a larger size?’
While she turned to look in the storeroom at the stacks of boxes on shelves, Johnny went back to the cubicle and kicked the pile of empty purses to the side until they were hidden by the folds of the curtain.
Clare came back with a larger size pair of shoes. Johnny slipped them on. ‘Maybe the shoes, not the dress.’
While he was changing into his own clothes, Clare asked Jake if he had decided on the trousers.
Jake said, ‘Maybe. Where’s your boss? Is it his lunch hour?’
She nodded her head slowly. ‘He’ll be back any moment.’
Jake nodded. She knew what he was going to ask. ‘Do you mind if I just take them, then? I’m a bit short at the moment.’
She sucked at her lip. ‘Okay, but shove it inside your jacket. I don’t want him coming back and bumping into you on the escalator.’
*
They were on the escalator when they ran into trouble. Johnny’s hand was inside a woman’s shopping-bag and, when the escalator straightened and she stepped forward, she felt the drag on her shoulder. Johnny pushed past her, running hard. Jake, two steps slower, tried to follow but the woman already had a grip on him. After about three seconds, no longer, Jake pulled a violent twisting shrug and she weakened. He saw, from the beginning to the end, the woman was scared crazy, but she didn’t want to let go.
It was another five minutes before he caught up with Johnny. Sprinting through two concourses, weaving round the indoor market stalls and only stopping when he reached the fifth floor of the multi-storey next-door.
Jake, bent double and panting hard, managed to say: ‘What the fuck you trying to do?’
‘You got away, didn’t you?’ Johnny was just as short of breath but already feeling through his pockets for a pack of cigarettes. Leant against the barrier rail, there was nothing but sky above his head, nothing but fresh air between his ears.
Jake said, ‘I got away? I nearly had to lamp her to do it. Don’t fucking do that to me again.’ He pulled himself straight, walked over to Johnny and snatched the cigs out of Johnny’s hand. ‘You cunt.’
‘Yeah okay. Sorry. But I’m still short of money.’ Johnny threw his Venus store bag to the floor. ‘I shouldn’t have bought these fucking shoes.’
They were just lucky he hadn’t worn them – as he said he would. They couldn’t have got far if Johnny had been trotting along in heels. Jake took out a cigarette, lit it and threw the pack back at Johnny.
For a while, up there above High Street, they stayed quiet and waited for the cigarettes to work their relaxation trick. Johnny’s only seemed to make him reflective. ‘Anyway – how’s it my fault? It wasn’t you with your hand in her bag. You could have just stood there, making out you don’t know me. You didn’t need to run.’
Jake undid the buttons at the front of his coat. The Iggy-style trousers were wrapped around his waist. ‘And when security searched me, how was I supposed to explain this?’ He was lucky they hadn’t unravelled while he was running. He had felt them slip a little.
Johnny stared. ‘You stole those? Why didn’t you take the shoes as well?’
Jake wasn’t sure, but Johnny seemed genuinely upset. Maybe he was just tired. He had turned his face away, looking out over the parapet towards the Piccadilly Radio skyscraper and Chorlton Street Bus Station beyond.
After a moment, he said, ‘What time is it?’
Jake wasn’t wearing a watch. It was mid-afternoon. Johnny said, ‘So what am I supposed to do now? Sell my arse?’
‘Yeah, well, don’t sell yourself short. About fifty pence should be right.’
Johnny said, ‘I’ll catch the ones leaving work.’
They didn’t talk much on the walk across Piccadilly Gardens towards the Village. Jake was already feeling the hiss of a depression, it worked its way deeper as they closed on the diesel smell of the coaches and the shadows of the car-park above. Hopefully, Johnny wouldn’t have to literally sell his arse. If it all went smooth, he’d wring out a few handjobs, suffer the backseat gropes, maybe use his mouth or have someone use their own on him. At least he wouldn’t be working alone: Kevin Donnelly was already in his usual place, by the car-park stairs, close to the gents’ toilet.
Jake nodded over to the boy, giving him a thin smile before turning to Johnny.
‘Yeah, well, I’ll see you later.’
It was about as irrational as you could get but he felt he should have offered to help. Johnny didn’t ask though, and there was no way Jake could face it, cold or sober, before dark on a Friday evening. They arranged to meet later in Good-Day’s. Johnny thought he might be a couple of hours – no longer. He said, ‘You’re still coming to this party, later? Help me flog the Vids?’
Jake said, ‘Sure.’
Jake walked round to the back of Good-Day’s where the door was on the latch. He knocked first, then pushed it open. At the end of the corridor, he saw Lady Good-Day talking on the phone. Jake rapped again, this time on the side of the staircase. Lady Good-Day looked over and waved him in.
Official opening hours didn’t begin for another forty-five minutes or so and, aside from a lone regular and one of Good-Day’s barstaff asleep on a bench, the place was empty. Coming in the back way, Jake entered on the wrong side of the bar. He ducked under the counter and waited for Lady Good-Day to get off the phone. As he flexed against the wood-grained melamine rim of the bar top, he tried to remember the last time he saw Good-Day out of drag. This was man’s wear: a huge T-shirt that fell to his knees, a string hairnet that covered his Bobby Charlton hair-do.
Putting the phone down, Good-Day said, ‘Who’s the early bird?’
Jake said, ‘You’d have got ready if you knew I was coming?’
‘If you were coming, I’d be ready.’ The way Good-Day winked, you’d think his face was spring-loaded.
‘You want to make amends, I’ll have a Bacardi and Coke.’
Good-Day rapped the bar with the back of his hand; his rings made a small-change Clank. ‘Either you’ve got cash or you go thirsty.’
Man and woman, Good-Day believed in you paying your way. It was the same code as the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, only Good-Day applied it as thick and slippery as he did his make-up. Not every transaction necessarily had to be in cash; it wasn’t like he was claiming to be incorruptible.
‘Of course, you can always work for it. I think I’ve got a vacant spot that needs filling.’ The offer came with another wink. A fatman playing the cringing coquette; it wasn’t pretty.
Jake said, ‘Just a Bacardi and Coke.’ He had enough money for now.
Sitting there, watching as the office workers began to drift in, he had a chance to think back to his conversation with DC Green. Aside from the laboured stories and the whipped analogies, the policeman had been straight with him: he was ambitious and while the force was holding up Pascal as a model, then he would play along. Sitting at the bare table in the interview room, he’
d said, ‘Cards down, son, I need the pinches. There’s seven thousand police on the Manchester force and, if I stand still, one of those bastards is going to steal my career. I got to say, with you it’s different… all I’m offering you is a chance to stand still. Feed me the pinches or I send you down, every fucking chance I get. Think on.’
Soon, Jake would sell someone out; all for the sake of John Pascal’s crazy faith in hell & salvation, and the career of DC Davey Green. The way things were going, his first victim might even be Johnny. It wasn’t as though the idea of betraying a friend was an alien concept. Sneaking off with Domino last night, that was an act of betrayal. Once Sean got hold of him, it would become a whole fucking drama: Fairy and Rebecca both playing small, walked-on roles. Jake couldn’t claim he was innocent; he knew what he was doing. The truth was, if it had been nothing but a two-minute stand-up shag, he might have resisted temptation and walked away clean. It was because the stakes were so high, he had to go through with it. Afterwards, when the whole thing turned sordid, he wouldn’t be able to shrink-wrap and sanitize the whole affair. It nailed too many betrayals to be cleaned up easily… it would have gone too far, got too serious.
Good-Day was still out of costume, slobbing between the beer pumps in his T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms.
Jake said, ‘What am I supposed to call you when you’re dressed like that?’
The man preened and waddled over. ‘It doesn’t matter what I wear, I’m still a lady. Breeding shows.’
Jake said, ‘Why is it being a queen’s not enough? You have to be a raving queen?’
‘Call of the fucking wild, dear.’
‘It’s a call for fucking help.’
It was the grand alibi, camping up the glamour even though you knew you were on a downward spiral. The only saving grace, that there was a kind of final, desperate glamour in the fact that it was all downhill from here on. Once you started on that trip, nothing could save you. Jake was ready to sell anyone and everyone out, and claim that each betrayal had its own special allure. When he knew, the real allure was that every betrayal sent him spinning deeper into the hole. And DC Green stole that last comfort when he made his promise: sell someone out, you save yourself. The deal broke the spiral, putting Jake back on course in a world that was mean-spirited, tight-arsed, un-desperate… he couldn’t think of enough adjectives. For the past year, he’d been trying to make his life over as one long slow-motion crash. But maybe he wasn’t up to it. That moment in the Arndale Centre, when the woman was hanging onto his arm and Johnny was halfway across the mall, Jake was thinking: This has nothing to do with me. I’m still a fucking bystander.
One thing DC Green made clear: he had no axe to grind. He thought the whole thing was stupid: ‘You kids want to play at nances, I don’t give a fuck.’ He didn’t get Anderton’s moral crusade and he didn’t believe John Pascal was anything but another brown-nose hypocrite. Green didn’t believe anyone could take it seriously.
Jake called for another Bacardi. There was no reason to think it wasn’t serious. Jake believed it could get serious; at least he was trying.
Chapter Nine
DI Green was bouncing on the edge of one of the beds, like this was the Slumberland factory and he was the boss spring-tester. He definitely didn’t understand the idea of twin doubles. Pointing at the one opposite, he said: ‘Shove that out, you got more floor space. I don’t get it.’
The man had a point. But Jake didn’t know why he seemed so disappointed. Maybe he’d been looking forward to slurping around a water-bed, maybe find a Jacuzzi.
It was the first time Green’s patriotic buy-Manchester spiel had faltered since he hitched a ride in Jake’s taxi. Now he was almost thoughtful; on the ride to the hotel he had been a one-man promotional extravaganza. Perched on one of the cab’s flip-down seats, he overdubbed every city-centre improvement with his own personal running commentary. If Jake’s face showed a glimmer of surprise, he grabbed hold like it was admissible evidence. The pause at the first set of traffic lights, for instance, as one of the new trams stole the junction and slid towards Piccadilly Gardens.
Looking out of his hotel window, Jake got a fresh chance to see a tram. He watched it snake through a choreographed S-bend and rejoin the traffic on St Peter’s Square, and he tried to blank out Green and his whole bed analysis.
The man saying, ‘Yeah, well, it seems comfy. You should be all right in a mo, you get your head down.‘
Jake stayed silent. Just felt the sour aftertaste of vomit in his month.
‘What was it? Delayed shock… what?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘It wasn’t that you’re worried about seeing Halliday tomorrow?’
Jake shook his head. ‘No. Just something I ate.’
It had happened on the cab ride from Piccadilly Station. Jake got a rush of saliva and shouted to the driver to pull over. He was just in time. Hunched by the kerb, he threw up a bitter mouthful of coffee. There was nothing else in his stomach. Now he was installed in the hotel, he was feeling light-headed, but otherwise better. He carried on staring out of his bedroom window, trying to enjoy that Millennial Manchester vibe without puking.
He turned to DI Green and said, ‘What’s that?’
Green followed Jake’s look, back out of the window, towards Lower Mosley Street. ‘That? That was built yonks back.’
What was once the derelict Central Station had now been refitted with a wire-sprung steel canopy and hung with glass. Banners floating outside the building promised a season of Cinderella On Ice. ‘Book Early for an All-Round Family Entertainment.’ The family angle wasn’t something they could have advertised sixteen years ago, when Johnny used its broken arches for cover any time he worked as a rentboy. This was his usual procedure, he would flag down a punter on Chorlton Street and steer them across town and into the great hall of the station. For a few parked, packed minutes, they got to buy a ride aboard the dicky-back express.
‘Next to it, that’s the Hallé’s new concert hall.’ Green joined Jake at the window, pointing off to the right and another hi-tech dreamboat. ‘It’s been up six months and it’s already supposed to be in profit. I tell you, this Labour council, they really got their shit together.’
Jake looked across, towards something that looked like a dinkier version of the opera house at the Bastille. It looked cute, printed against the skyline. Maybe it was supposed to be a double monument: New Manchester, New Labour. What he’d seen of the city before he got sick, there were a lot of improvements. At least a stack of cosmetic tricks that the coming Labour Government would probably fail to reproduce over the country. Still, the concert hall didn’t look right. This was Manchester, not Paris. And the particular view from his bedroom window was something Jake knew well. From St Peter’s Square, down Lower Mosley Street, he expected to see a clear stretch of urban desolation. It was his and Johnny’s standard route home when they shared a flat together.
‘Where are the Crescents? I should be able to see them from here.’
‘You won’t see them from any-fucking-where, they knocked those shit-holes down.’
Jake stared out, expecting to see a hole at least – a dotted line against the sky to mark the space they left behind.
For some reason he was still holding the man-size tissue the cab driver gave him to wipe his mouth. He screwed it up, aimed it at the bin beneath the dressing-table and scored, first hit. He never expected to get physically sick, and even now he couldn’t explain it. The second the cab pulled out of Piccadilly, Green had started planning a full-scale tour of the city. Jake tried to say, No Thanks – he could do it alone. But DI Green was a hard man to shrug off. When the sickness caught him, they were halfway through the tour, circling the hoarding; that enclosed the bomb-damaged centre of the city. Jake had never expected to see so much damage six months after the IRA bomb. A hole the size of two back-to-back football stadiums had been carved out of the junction of Cross Street and Corporation Street, taking a chunk of the Arndale
Centre with it.
Green said, ‘Shocker, eh? Fucking IRA cunts, bringing that shit to Manchester when half the city’s Irish.’
The blast extended as far as the Corn Exchange. When they reached the buildings’ steel-trussed carcass, Jake asked the driver to slow down. He wanted to see what was left of Pips. Fifteen years ago, it was the north’s largest nightclub. Built into the underground cellars of the Corn Exchange, the club extended over most of a city block. Now, it was under unsteady rubble. The bomb had lifted the dome off the old building, twisted it round and slammed it back. What was left was so out of kilter, the whole edifice seemed bent with the effort of holding it up.
It was around then, Jake got the cab driver to stop while he threw up. Something in the whole situation, the mix of helplessness and anger, got through to him. At the time, it felt even grander than that: the mix of politics, Manchester and Ireland and all of that place’s crazed sense of religion. Jake hated what the IRA had done: not just bombing Manchester but doing it during Euro ’96 when the city was full of ordinary shoppers and Czech and German visitors. He’d caught the afternoon TV news specials and seen people staggering round, blood pouring from their heads, seen them stretchered to ambulances. It was horrible, more than horrible.
Six months on, he could see what the IRA had done all over again. And still he wasn’t quite able to blame them. It was the way he was raised. The IRA were Catholics and he still, somehow, believed Catholics were too simple to bear any sense of responsibility. At least, not for any longer than it took a hick priest to absolve them. If he wanted a focus, he could project it onto the Ulster Unionists for stoking up a war that made both sides look and act like dumb psychopaths, onto the Tory government that pandered to them, onto the Reverend Ian Paisley and the streaming shites that tailed him, onto the lunatic evil posturings of men that betrayed their faith… which brought him full circle back to Pascal and his own religious war.
He’d reeled out of the taxi and onto the pavement, his head pounding, squeezing a mouthful of sour puke that seemed to come out of his lungs. He couldn’t believe he could still feel so powerfully hopeless or that, when the feeling erupted, it could use religion as its alibi. He was over religion.
Manchester Slingback Page 9