Wayne moaned. ‘You mean we’re going to die?’
‘Too fucking right.’ Lance plucked a duet with the wind on an imaginary guitar:
‘If you sleep in the snow
You won’t hear yourself go:
Or so I have heard.
You get warmer and warmer
Like a humming-bird.’
Wayne bumped his head in despair. ‘It’s all right for you: you scribble songs and want to go to Music City. You hope you’ll be famous one day, not like us hopeless gets.’
‘I ain’t had a fuck for three days,’ Garry said. ‘I don’t want to die a virgin.’ He belched. ‘Them fucking chips is repeating on me again. Proper bloody Winchesters. I suppose the fat was off.’
‘It’s the beer, not the chips.’ Wayne drew a rag from his jacket and wiped the headlamp. ‘There, I won’t let you die, Black Bess.’ He kissed it. ‘You’ve served me well. You waited eighteen months while I was inside and didn’t go whoring off with a Harley Davidson. I’ll stand by you.’
‘Silly-born bastard,’ Lance said. ‘You only nicked it last night: Some pimply-faced kid broke his heart when he woke up this morning, till his old lady promised him another for Christmas. He don’t know Santa Claus can’t get down a chimney with a BMW sticking out of his bag.’
Garry passed around more booze. ‘You’re pissed out of your flowerpot.’
‘We’re all pissed.’ Wayne kicked snow from the van wheel. ‘Three piss-ants, and no fucking work in the morning.’
‘Yeh, let others work,’ Lance said. ‘I’m generous like that. I only want to glide around on my BMW.’
‘BM-fucking-Ws,’ Garry said. ‘I’ve shit ’em. Only posh fuckpigs arse around on BMWs – Bleeding Middle-class Wankers.’
‘It’s better than Jap crap,’ Lance said. ‘They break down all the time.’
‘That’s why we love ’em.’ Wayne’s empty bottle fell silently into the snow. ‘If they didn’t break down now and again we’d never learn owt. Still, are we going to die or not? When the boss wonders where I am in the morning he’ll have to shift his own castings onto the lorry. I hope he breaks his fingernails.’ He tried a handstand at the side of the van, sank in the snow and came up licking his lips. ‘Lovely! It tastes a treat.’
Garry wiped a snow flurry from the side of his face. ‘Do you want some sugar in it?’
‘We’ll fucking freeze to death,’ Wayne said. ‘I don’t like the cold. Me mam got me some thermal long-combs, but I’m still freezing.’
Garry lifted three bottles of Pils from his pannier and handed them out. ‘Sorry I forgot the Ogri mugs, lads.’
‘Best cartoon character in the world, old Ogri.’ Lance took a magazine from his topbox. ‘I always laugh when I read that stuff. You never see him in the posh papers like the Mirror, though. I don’t know why.’
‘I love him as well.’ Garry tapped his bottle on the Commer mudguard. ‘But seeing as we ain’t got no Ogri mugs you’ll have to suck on glass. We’ll live five extra minutes. Not that we want to live for ever, do we? We wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. Fucking awful prospect.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ Wayne said. ‘You’re thirty next birthday. You’ll be too old then to do wheelies up Mount Everest.’
‘It looks like we’ll have to walk out of this ice cream,’ Lance said.
The wailing of the others sounded above the wind, broken by Garry. ‘Did you say walk? He did. He said walk. Did you hear that? Walk! Fucking walk, he said. Walk! Us! Bikers! Whoever heard of real live bikers walking? My heart wouldn’t stand it. And if it did I’d never live it down. Walk! I’d get cramp. People would laugh. You must be out of your one-stroke mind. I’d never walk. I haven’t walked since I was a baby. What is walking, anyway? Isn’t it that funny little waddle people do when they want to get from A to B? And then they’re only on their way to catch a bus.’
‘Bus!’ They latched arms so close that heads touched, laughing till the tears froze.
‘We’ve got to move,’ Lance said, ‘and the bikes won’t do it. They’ve hudged closer since we stopped. They know it’s all up with them, poor things.’ He cried bitter tears. ‘We’ll have to go from one to another with a gun to blow their brains out, so they won’t suffer too much.’ He sniffed, back into manhood. ‘My old man’ll have to open the stall in Uttoxeter market on his own tomorrow.’
‘What we need,’ Wayne said, ‘is a nice big van to get us out of this freezing shit.’
They thought on the matter.
‘You might as well wish for the moon,’ Garry said. ‘We can’t even see the road. In the meantime, though, is there any more gut rot? No? We’ll have to start on the petrol, then. A cup o’ four-star, anybody?’ He unscrewed the cap, dipped a finger, held it to the wind, and licked. ‘The bastards would water tit milk if it came out of a can.’
‘A bad year,’ Lance said. ‘Our Ken works down the pit, and when he got his NUM diary not long ago it told you the best years for wine. But after that Scargill strike it didn’t tell you any more. Nobody could afford even vinegar. A real fucking killpig of a strike that was. He had to sell his car. But everybody was getting rid of theirs as well, so he only got fifty quid for it.’
‘He shouldn’t have come out,’ Wayne said.
‘He had to, didn’t he, bighead?’
‘Well, you don’t have to do everything people tell you to, do you?’
‘Yeh, but we shouldn’t have come out tonight, should we? But we did, and in this bleeding weather as well. Who would believe it?’
‘I wonder what the forecast is?’ Wayne said. ‘My leg’s like a bit of old pitprop. Fancy coming for a spin on a rotten night like this.’
‘No time’s perfect.’ Lance looked around the back of the van, barely able to stand against the peltering snow. ‘If we push out into it we won’t last five minutes. Maybe we can get this thing going.’
Garry considered it for the extended time of one second. ‘It’s been dumped. Somebody nicked it and flogged it along the road till the petrol ran out.’
‘Got any tools?’
‘Tools? You’re off your fucking cowpat. I wouldn’t know what to do with ’em.’
Lance cleared the snow from the handle, wrenched the door open, and clambered in. ‘At least we’ll get our arses out of the snow.’
‘Eh,’ Garry exclaimed, ‘lad’s clever. He’ll get his fucking O Levels next.’
‘He might even learn to walk,’ Wayne said. ‘I hear they teach you at night school. You only have to totter twenty-five yards in the test.’
‘Then he’ll meet another little walker,’ Garry went on, ‘one with tits, and happen after a while they’ll get wed, and have a gaggle of little snotty-nosed walkers. They’ll go by us long-haired greasy biking bastards with their little piggy noses stuck in the air. Walkers! I hate ’em, nearly as much as buses and taxis and cars.’
Lance pulled wires from behind the dashboard. A smoky roar blurted from the engine, lights dimly yellow on the snow. ‘Get in, for fuck’s sake, but kick a bit of that white stuff from around the wheels first.’
Tyres scuffed and spun. ‘Push, you idle bastards.’
‘Ah,’ said Garry, ‘push! That’s different. Bikers might not be able to walk, but they can push all right. Come on, let’s get this wagon moving.’
While Lance coughed himself breathless, Garry took a turn in the cabin and kept the engine lively, got them a few feet forward. ‘One more heave-ho, and we’re in the clear.’ He roared the power to encourage, till hot gas from the exhaust set the pushers screaming that they would kill him if he didn’t stop choking them alive. ‘It’s warming you up. Make you drunk quicker than booze.’ He put on all systems in well-timed operation, the van swaying onto the road.
Garry stayed at the controls. ‘Come on, my beauty, don’t let us down.’ He slid the doors back. ‘Shake the snow off your boots before you get into my nice van, you flea-bitten deadbeats.’ He weaved, threading the drifts at a crawl.
>
Lance noticed a decrease in the snow, a slight drop in the wind. ‘We’re on the move. Maybe God won’t let us snuff it, after all.’
Wayne laughed. ‘God? Did you hear that, lads? God! God’s dead, you daft get. I knocked him flying at a Belisha beacon last week. His fucking pension book went all over the shop. You should have seen the look on his face. A wonderful sight. Eh, we’re going quicker, do you notice?’
‘Eight miles an hour,’ Garry said. ‘It’ll take us all week to find a phone box.’
‘We’ll get the Chief Constable to send us a chopper,’ Lance said. ‘Ask him to take us back to Chesterfield.’
‘I want a nice cosy boozer.’ Garry kicked the clutch, and rattled the gears from slot to slot. ‘We can play darts on the landlord’s poxy face. It’ll warm us up a bit.’ Smoke and rubber reeked as the wheels spun. He pulled a spade from the space behind. ‘Get digging for victory. That’ll warm you up.’
They scooped snow aside with a stiffbacked motoring atlas, kicked and breasted it till the shovel hit tarmac. ‘Push again,’ Lance shouted, red-raw hands taking the wheel.
‘I feel knackered,’ Wayne said. ‘I won’t be able to kick a pub to pieces, even if we find one.’
‘It’s nearly-stopped snowing,’ Garry told him. ‘And then it’ll fucking well freeze.’
‘We’re getting there. If anybody spots a light,’ Wayne said, ‘let me know through the intercom.’
‘You won’t see any lights around these parts,’ Lance told him. ‘They shut ’em off in case anybody knocks at the door to ask for a cup of water.’
Garry laughed, head back. ‘Do you remember when we ripped a door off that hotel in Paxton and chucked it over the bar? And that old bastard saying we ought to be called up into the army? I sent my pint o’ slurry over him. He said we ought to be flogged!’
Lance banged his fist against the windscreen. ‘But nobody would buy us, I told him. You wouldn’t even get ten pence for us.’
‘Then we slung a few chairs into the saloon, just to show willing. Posh punters didn’t know what was happening. They thought the fucking revolution had started.’ Wayne passed his fag packet. ‘At least we can have our last puff before we die.’
‘We had to run, though,’ Lance said.
‘Of course we had to run. Twenty to one, wasn’t it? You don’t fight twenty to fucking one.’
‘I wonder what’s in the back of this van?’ Lance said. ‘Why don’t somebody take a look?’
‘Boxes,’ Garry shouted. ‘They’re full of fifty-pound notes with the ink still wet. No, it looks like hi-fi stuff.’
‘We’ll have a shufti when we’re in the clear. Then we can set it going and have a dance, a bit of old ragtime.’ Songs went through Lance’s mind ten a minute, but they hardly ever finished. ‘Dance with the snowflakes, more like.’
‘The battery wouldn’t last. Still, we’re moving, aren’t we? What’s that light over there?’
‘You need glasses.’ Lance waved cigarette smoke away. ‘It’s a farm, and they’ve already got their shotguns trained on us, you can bet.’
‘It must have been the glow of our fags in the windscreen.’ Covered tracks were harder in the frost, and the van crawled healthily. ‘Where did you learn to handle this sort o’ thing, Lance?’
‘My old man’s a lazy bastard. He makes me drive his wagon all over the shop, up hill and down dale, taking stuff to farms. I get stuck in the mud sometimes, so it’s good practice for snow.’
‘I hope we don’t find our bikes have been nicked in the morning,’ Wayne said. ‘Whoever took ’em, I’d chase ’em to the ends of the earth. Anyway, I’d know its cough anywhere.’
‘My little beauty is even taxed,’ Lance said. ‘And insured. My old man made me see to it. If I break the law he goes white and starts to shake all over. He was in the last war, so he can’t stand me getting into trouble with Old Bill.’
‘Road tax – I stick a Guinness label on mine,’ Garry said, ‘and even that’s out of date.’ He leaned forward. ‘Ah, that is a light. And it’s getting bigger.’
‘He’s right,’ Lance said. ‘There ain’t been any power cuts yet.’ Snow melted patchily off the bonnet, warmed by the engine, and water from the roof waved down over the wipers, bringing the van back to shape and colour. ‘Oh, lads, it’s a pub. Or maybe a hotel. Aren’t we in for the treat of our lives?’
THIRTEEN
He had been in such rooms often, wondered whether Eileen had, couldn’t imagine where she had in fact been, what furnishings she’d live among. Terylene curtains wouldn’t keep out light, cold or noise. There was a small writing table, built-in cupboard and drawers: chintzy bedlamps, an open plastic coffin in the bathroom. He felt a wildness in him to break the place apart, as if he wanted to rearrange the clutter of his mind into some sort of prelapsarian order. He wouldn’t know how to begin, the seismic change had been so complete, and in any case he had left his ice axe in the car and didn’t fancy sending Eileen out again. Maybe she didn’t care for his company, beyond the benefit of the lift off the moors and a bed for the night. He hardly knew whether he wanted to be with her, but there were two beds, which gave them a choice. ‘Close the door.’
She sat in the armchair. ‘I thought we would get a four-poster in this highwayman’s hotel.’
‘I’ll arrange it next time.’ Water from the tap was rusty and chill, but he washed his hands as if he had last done so ten years ago. ‘Your face is dirty, by the way.’
She pouted. ‘You’re a sarky old sod, aren’t you?’
‘Well, it is – a bit streaky from your travels. You should be happy I told you about it. Anyway, you don’t need to be afraid of me.’
She knew that already, otherwise she wouldn’t be here, would she? She looked at him, his teeth uneven, hair tousled, rolling the towel round and round. He wasn’t much of a picture, either. ‘The room smells musty, as if a squirrel died in it, but I like it. I’ve only ever been in a bed-and-breakfast before, not a proper hotel like this.’
‘I didn’t realize I was being sarcastic.’ He unbuttoned his waistcoat, more to be at ease than with any notion of undressing. He wanted to sit at the table and write a letter, but Gwen wouldn’t be able to receive it. Every time he went away he hoped she would go off with another man, their relationship painlessly settled by the time he got back. And she, he knew, had never wanted him to return.
Eileen took off her shirt, showing a larger bust than he had supposed, but an off-white brassiere. Well, you couldn’t get into bed with your clothes on, could you? ‘I hate it when you laugh at me like that. You’re always doing it.’
‘Am I?’ She was beginning to sound like his wife, surprising how little time was needed. Maybe it was his fault, after all, though he didn’t want to think so. ‘I was amused at my own thoughts. Not at you, believe me.’
She unhooked her brassiere and let it slip forward, caught the straps and threw it onto the bed. ‘How do I know, then, if you don’t tell me?’
‘Now I have.’
‘Not much.’
Turning off the main light left a basic glow between the beds. ‘It’s a start. You can’t deny that.’ He felt he could tell her anything, but was it because she was nothing, or because he was?
She let the tap run till the water was as warm as it would get, washed her hands and face, glad to have heard more talk from him in one evening than had been squeezed out of her boy friend in days – and that had cost her, a black eye and a twisted arm. She hated the term ‘boy friend’ because there had never seemed a time when one had been friendly in the way people ought to be. ‘You can tell me, then, if you like. You might not have me for long.’
He took off his shirt and vest, disappointing her when he opened his case, as if only to change. ‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘I’m here just for the night, aren’t I?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it, to be honest.’ Tomorrow wouldn’t exist from now on for such as him. ‘But do we have to make
an issue of it?’
A shadowy triangle of hair showed through her pink pants. ‘I don’t know about you, but I do.’
He put clean clothes back in the case and closed it, as if pondering every action beforehand. ‘Perhaps I do, as well. When something good happens to me I like to imagine it’s going to last for ever. And why not, even now? So I will, if you don’t mind, and if the idea doesn’t offend you.’
She smiled. ‘I like you more and more. How funny, though, I thought you’d have lots of hair on your chest, and you have. It tickles!’
His arms were around her, the wonderful feel of her flesh and the cool young breasts. She had been thinking about him to that extent. ‘When did it first cross your mind?’
She drew away. ‘I suppose you think I’m nothing but a dirty slut?’
He grimaced: not another neurotic woman. Surely she’s too young to be in that trap already. He plugged into some corny television play to remark: ‘And I suppose you think I’m just a dirty old man out for a good time?’
She was smooth and pale, with the loveliest young woman’s figure, neither wrinkles nor stretchmarks, as he stood back to look at her, though her teeth wanted seeing to, and a little civilized polish would do her no harm. Nor would a feeling of security for her battered soul. Such tinkering would make a different person, and would he like her more or less? It was too late to find out, so he wouldn’t be the man to know. If he made her pregnant would something interesting come out of it, or a recidivist monster?
‘What I would like to know,’ she said, ‘is why you’ve got that long knife in your case?’ She picked up his packet of cigarettes. ‘Can I have one?’
‘Please do. I thought I’d left it in the car. It’s a survival knife. Very useful for all sorts of things.’
‘As long as you aren’t going to cut me up with it.’
He laughed. ‘Whatever could give you that idea?’
But she was more interested in the lighter. ‘It’s nice’ – flat, gold and effective.
He ought to tell her: it’s a present from Gwen. Have it, he should say but – Where’s that cigarette lighter I gave you for your birthday? Gwen would surely have asked. I lost it, he’d tell her. I left the car door open and somebody took it out of the glove box. Tell me another, she’d say, if she could say anything any more. ‘I’d give it to you, but it’s a present from my father. He would be sure to notice it had gone.’
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