‘You be here for da fights or for da dawg?’
‘Neither. I never met the hound and I didn’t know the rules of the pub. Just passing through, really, looking out for a mate.’
He heaved his body up onto a stool, but it balked at his weight and clattered to the floor. He caught at the bar and sniffed a globule of blood back inside his nose. ‘He don’t reckon he be fighting,’ he said to the girl behind the bar.
‘Oh no,’ the girl said. ‘He’s well aware he has to fight.’
‘Patrick,’ he yelled to the man with the bucket. ‘He be playing shy this one, but he’s up next.’
Patrick nodded at Ben and smiled.
‘It’s not be so serious here,’ Roger turned back to Ben. ‘Nobody gets killed. Well, not on purpose, if you know what I mean? Oh no, we don’t do killing here. We just like to be drinking and betting. I dropped a grey nurse because I thought Francis was looking beat, but da bastard’s got a lion’s heart, for sure. A bloody grey nurse I dropped. She’ll be sewing me pockets together tonight, for sure?’
He rubbed at his nose and smeared blood across his face. His legs dipped and Ben caught him by the arm. He nodded his thanks.
‘No, it just be for a bit of clap and holler,’ he chuckled. ‘And de bet. And let’s not be forgetting de drink. I’ve softened the gut on dat wee boy, so you be right. Someone’s got to be taking him down. May as well be you. What’s your name?’
‘I’m Ben.’
They shook hands. ‘You not from round here? Yer mate be local?’
‘No, but her boyfriend is. She’s not here, eh? I’m thinking she must be in the Saggermakers.’
‘Oh shit,’ the girl tending bar muttered.
Ben turned to the girl, but she was backing into the Public Bar to serve a Burrower. She shook her head as Ben met her gaze.
‘What’s the problem?’ Ben said.
Roger grabbed him and turned him. ‘You be looking for some whore drinking in tat shit hole. What’s her fuckin’ name?’
‘It’s okay,’ Ben said. ‘She isn’t here. My mistake, eh? I’m new and lost and I’m not bothered if we meet up or not. I’ll tell her dad she’s fine.’
‘What be her damn name?’
‘Claudia.’
Time didn’t stop, but all present took a sharp intake of breath at the sounding of her name. Francis dropped his hands and took a couple of jabs to the nose. The pub looked at Ben and the girl at the juke box stepped forward.
‘Dat whore.’
Francis took the opportunity to end the fight with a single punch to the temple. The man dropped hard and settled onto the floor in a tangle of limbs.
Loubie entered the bar holding onto a bandage wrapped about her arm. A thin trickle of blood leaked through the white cloth. She stopped at the door watching the prostrate body wallowing in the blood and beer. When two ladies bent to attend his injuries, Loubie skipped past and joined Ben. The girls by the juke box chewed at their bottles, watching Loubie and Ben at the bar.
‘Found her,’ she said. ‘You in trouble?’
‘Big time. What happened to you?’
She looked at her arm and shrugged. ‘Nothing to worry about. Claudia and Tommy are heading for the jeep.’
Roger pushed Ben forward. ‘You be talking about Max’s girl?’
‘Max Meldrum, yeah.’
‘You better be praying you can fight, coz his name isn’t spoken here. And tat cow has a warrant for a flogging.’
Ben looked at the girl behind the bar hoping for assistance. ‘Two names not uttered in this bar,’ she said.
‘Right,’ Ben said. ‘Didn’t know. So Max is known up here. I thought he was our problem.’
‘It be going back years, Duck,’ Roger said, ‘when Max be marrying a Smith and got a dawg in the dowry. He be selling it when he took da girl down south to a couple of farmers. Dey pitted it against Dingleberry Dasher, serious. Dat was a dawg. Dat be prize winning dat dawg. It was da dawg we be dreaming of. It be fast and cornered well, and it be hunting a hare down in minutes. Dare was no contest. But this dawg, the Henwell Harrier, well it be a freak. It won and won and Dingleberry be getting depressed and refused to run. It had to be put down.
‘Well, that’s a sad tale, eh?’
‘Don’t joke about their dogs.’ The bar girl touched his arm. ‘Serious, don’t. They lost a fortune to these farmers and the Gypsies don’t like to be losing to the farmers. So we don’t be mentioning Max. The Gypsies thought they had a coup when Claudia turned up with their John and a bairn. That was one on old Max, but John, like his dad, liked to take a bat to girls and he battered that poor girl senseless. But one night she took the bat off him. Too bloody right, she did, Duck.’
She turned her back and busied herself at the sink. Francis didn’t look well. The hands gripping his knees had flaps of bloodied skin hanging loose and his right knuckle showed white bone. He tried to suck air into his lungs, to hold it there, but it came out quick with a load of spittle spraying the floor. Two girls dressed in tight shorts and singlets helped the old boy into a chair. His legs didn’t work and his arms flopped between them. Patrick stepped forward waving the bucket, trying to look into his eyes. In the end he grabbed Francis’s bloodied hand and held it aloft.
‘The winner.’
Ben smiled at Loubie and shrugged. ‘Best get this over with, eh?’ He stepped forward and tapped Patrick on the shoulder. ‘I’m ready.’
‘You not be biting, nor kicking, and no scratching or gouging,’ Patrick explained. ‘You got to wait if a man goes down and you need to be stepping back and letting him rise before resuming the fight. You be understanding da rules?’
Ben nodded. ‘Let’s go.’
Francis straightened and smiled a moist, bloody grin. ‘Come on then. What’s your name?’
‘Ben the Butcher.’
‘You’re a butcher?’
‘No.’
Francis shook his head like there was a fly in his ear.
Patrick grabbed them both by the arms. He peered into Francis’s eyes before nodding and slapping him hard across the face. ‘Let’s box.’
Francis tucked his head, chin on his chest and his clenched fists close to his face. Ben stood upright, his hands open, the right protecting his face and the left keeping his abdomen covered. Francis wanted space and kept feinting left and right to keep clear and catch his breath. Ben shuffled forward, following Francis’s backward steps. He hit him with straight punches to the nose. As Francis retreated, Ben pressed forward, double punching him to the nose. Left-right, the speed intense, but the rhythm syncopated to hamper a defense. Francis feinted left; his arms dropped and he puffed hard. A chair and then a table tangled his retreat as his guard dropped further. Ben concentrated on his nose. The speed of his strikes increased and the nose broke and splattered blood.
Francis no longer possessed the strength or the will to care how many times his face took a strike. The life in his limbs had left him two fights before Ben stepped up to floor. His flattened nose spurted blood. Francis forced his arms to cover the assault and Ben turned his attack to his ribs. He wanted to turn him so he could attack his kidneys, but also hoping to get a shot at the back of his head.
Francis pushed Ben away and came at him swinging like his life depended on battering Ben to death. Ben stepped back with each punch, allowing them to fall short and waiting for his blood rush to tire. When his arms dropped to his sides, Ben struck him a short sharp blow to his nose and then a power blow to the abdomen. He dug deep into his diaphragm with a subtle swivel in his hips.
It caught him cold.
Francis dropped and Ben heaved a left upper cut to his chin. He teetered, his head lolling, and Ben pounded a hammer blow from his right to the cheek, taking out his jaw. He collapsed in a heap of floppy, lifeless limbs.
Ben stepped back to the bar and tried to pick up his mug. His fingers shook and slopped the ale over the bar. He watched Francis, waiting for him to move. He wanted to kick him in the g
uts, stomp on his knees to ensure he never rose again. But the little man with the bucket pranced about the body. He lifted a limb and felt at his pulse, all the time chattering, telling his boy to get up, to walk it off. He dropped to the floor, his mouth close to Francis, talking in his ear and pleading with him to stand.
Quiet ruled in the pub as folk shuffled closer to the fallen competitor. They didn’t like the stranger taking out their boy. Ben scrounged a scraggy butt from his back pocket and lit up, gasping at the smoke as it tore at the back of his throat.
‘You all right?’ Loubie asked.
Ben shrugged. ‘They aren’t happy. Their number one dog died today. Beaten up by a hare, and they know Claudia and don’t like us being here looking for her. Now they’re doubly unhappy.’
Dribbles of blood seeped out from Loubie’s bandaged arm. ‘Jesus Lou, you need to get that seen to.’
She looked at her arm and shrugged. ‘It’s no big deal. It’s good to bleed. It releases shit and gives me mind a buzz. It’s cool for sure.’
The old boy helped Francis to the seats. The girl from the juke box squatted at his side mopping his brow. A gaggle of older ladies, mother types in short skirts and thick makeup, fussed over their boy. In turn they offered withering stares at the victor drinking at the bar.
One of the women approached Ben. ‘Tat’s my son,’ she said. Her voice sounded high octane and Ben winced as she continued. ‘We’ve got you clocked. You come in here looking for tat murderous wench and be beating on my son. What’s he done to you?’ The woman’s face tried to turn red, but the thick white makeup fought against it. The black of her eyes exaggerated the whites as she stared and spat at Ben.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but I didn’t ask to fight.’
Roger, wearing a shirt too tight for his gut, pointed a finger at Ben. ‘Still fuckin’ takin’ da piss.’ He emphasized the last word. He punched the bar. ‘On de day we lose our greatest hope since Dingleberry Dasher, Max feckin’ Meldrum sends a feckin’ minion to be pissing on our loss.’
Francis’s mother stepped back in her thick cork shoes and hitched the black and white skirt higher up her arse. Ben didn’t see the slap coming and took it full on the cheek, his body falling against Loubie. She caught him and held him, waiting for Ben to steady. Loubie stepped in front, ready to fight the lady.
‘Don’t you be hitting my Ben,’ she said. Loubie’s voice sounded loud in the bar.
‘I haven’t got a problem wit you, you black bitch,’ she said. ‘But you can’t be coming into our pub and be getting all bloody tough. Get out of our pub and get out of our town and make sure you take tat cow, Claudia, with you. But dat child isn’t going nowhere. He’s good gypsy stock and he be staying wit da family.
‘And you, Ben the bloody Butcher, we have you clocked. We got your number.’
Ben turned to the bargirl. ‘Does that mean we can go?’
‘Go.’ She passed Ben his coat. ‘And she’s right. Don’t come back.’
Chapter Thirteen
Welcome Lucas
Tommy revved the engine, sending a black cloud of exhaust into the polluted evening. He dropped the clutch the moment Loubie slammed the door and the old jeep jumped forward and stalled.
‘Jesus, Tommy,’ she said. ‘You want me to drive?’
‘No, I can do it.’ He restarted the jeep and gave the accelerator a good hard push. ‘It’s an unfamiliar beast and needs a firm hand and a delicate touch with the clutch.’
‘Get out,’ the girl in the passenger seat said. ‘I’ll drive.’
She pushed Tommy out of the open door and eased her ample arse into the driver’s seat. She didn’t bother with adjustments to the mirrors or seat, but found first gear and revved the motor until it cried. Tommy eased into the passenger seat and she dropped the clutch. Gravel spat and the jeep fishtailed as it scattered the Burrowers guarding the entrance.
Once on the road out of Henwell, she turned to look at Ben. ‘Claudia,’ she said. A short fingered hand reached over her shoulder demanding he shake. Ben took the hand and smiled, motioning with wide eyes at the stationary objects looming in the headlights.
Claudia glanced back to the road, swerved and accelerated. ‘You are?’
‘I’m Ben.’
A car beeped and a set of lights dazzled the windscreen. Claudia shouted abuse and hammered at the horn. She shook her fist as Ben and Loubie leaned away from the lights and danger. She turned on the wipers and lowered the lights, but nothing could clear the cloud of smog. Slowing down wasn’t an option with Claudia.
‘Where are we going?’ Ben asked.
‘Get my kid.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Bloxhelm.’
‘Right.’
‘You the one that was in the Digger’s,’ she said. She turned to look at Ben.
Another car honked and flashed his lights. Jerking back to the front, Claudia veered left and offered a fingered response to the passing motorist.
‘Can you keep your eyes on the road, please,’ Ben said.
‘I know these roads, too bloody right. Straight ahead, it is, but there’s a severe swerve left, then turn, second right we’re there.’
‘Where?’
‘What they have to say about me in the Digger’s?’
‘Not a lot. Nothing good, but not a lot.’
‘Yeah right. They still bitching about Max selling their dawg?’ Ben nodded. ‘Dead bloody right, they are. Sad damn Muppets, but they want me flogged, dead right they do. Strung up between two vans and flailed with a whip, no shitting you. Did they say that, did they? Too bloody right, they did.’
Claudia wrenched the wheel left and collected the edge of a massive pot hole. She pulled hard on the gear stick and took the jeep to another level of speed.
‘They didn’t have to take the beatings I did, too bloody right. Those beatings got to be nightly, they did. And I didn’t mean to hurt him. Not as bad as I did. But he kept hitting me and he shook Lucas once so bad I thought his head had come loose. Sometimes you just got to say enough. Dead fuckin’ right.’
‘For sure,’ Loubie said.
‘I just got a bit excited with the bat that night.’ She sniffed and slowed the car as one of the bends she mentioned approached. ‘But the bastard kept laughing at me. Too bloody right. I’m not making this shit up, no way. I didn’t like that bastard laughing, so I battered him. Soon fucking stopped, he did. I ain’t lying here, but he started squealin’ like a stuck pig.’
***
They parked in a layby hidden from the road by a thin copse of trees. Claudia jumped out of the car, climbed the weary wire fence and ran across the field.
‘Why’s she in such a hurry,’ Ben said.
‘She wants her kid,’ Loubie said. ‘Wouldn’t you be worried? I mean they said she wasn’t getting the kid back, didn’t they. Mothers are sort of protective, for sure they are. I’ve heard of mothers turning super strong just to save their kids from danger.’
‘Yeah, but why the hurry now?’
‘You’ve stirred them up,’ Tommy said. ‘‘My guess is the Gypsies aren’t far behind.’
‘So do you think she’s gone to get the kid?’ Ben said. ‘I’m tempted to follow. She’s worth a bit of money to us.’
‘I’d wait,’ Loubie said. Her head rested against the window. Her hand clutched her bandaged arm. ‘We’ll be back in Ostere in a couple hours. Then we got to worry about that bloody copper busting our balls.’
Ben looked at her arm. ‘What have you bandaged your cut with?’
Loubie ignored his question.
‘It’s a bar towel,’ Tommy said. ‘I stole it from the Saggermakers. I had to do something coz it wouldn’t stop bleeding.’
‘That can’t be healthy,’ Ben said. ‘You know it’s so easy to get blood poisoning from a simple cut these days. The infection gets into the blood and turns poisonous. We’ve got no bloody drugs that work anymore, so you just curl up and die. From a bloody cut, eh?’
‘She won’t say what she cut it on. She didn’t even want it bandaged, but it just looked bad, you know. You can’t walk about bleeding; people look at you funny.’
Ben opened the car door and stood by the fence looking across a dark field of domed huts. Snuffles and snores rumbled in the tin huts. Lights shone in the distance. The twang of an acoustic guitar picked at a tune, with a piano accordion inspiring a flat vocal accompaniment. ‘Why the hurry,’ he muttered.
Applause greeted the ending of the song as Ben stepped over the fence. Tommy called out, but Ben ignored him and picked his way through the boggy field.
‘Where’s he going,’ Tommy said. ‘Shouldn’t we follow?’
‘I don’t feel so good,’ Loubie said.
‘It’s all that blood you lost. And you’ve been drinking. You know alcohol thins your blood.’
‘Maybe some fresh air would help,’ she said.
‘Fair do’s, it seems silly sitting here. Why didn’t she wait for us, you know?’
‘Maybe she don’t want to come back with us. He didn’t seem very nice, that Max bloke, for real. And did you see the cool black dude pushing him in the chair? That was creepy, for sure. Max isn’t the sort of dad I’d want to be taking to parent-teacher’s night, no way. Not that I’d take my dad. That prick sailed a long time ago. And I wouldn’t take me stepdad either. What a prick that one was. So I’m thinking maybe she don’t want to come back and Ben’s thinking she’s given us the slip, and she did, dead easy. For sure, that’s right.’
She bent over and vomited. Tommy stepped back as Loubie stood and wiped her mouth with the bar towel. She pulled the ribbon from her hair and checked her dreadlocks in the jeeps internal light for vomit. ‘That’s better,’ she said. She tied her hair, spat and approached the fence.
‘Dads are shits,’ Tommy said.
‘What?’
Loubie looked over her shoulder at Tommy.
‘Dads. They’re shits,’ he repeated.
‘We could probably be more general, Tommy, for sure: Men are the shits. They just take that shitty attitude into parenting.’
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