Manchester Slingback

by Nicholas Blincoe

  Johnny was sat close by with a couple of girls Jake knew because they worked in clothes shops. As Jake walked over, they looked him up and down, saying, ‘Great, yeah, you look really good.’

  Johnny said, ‘You got a refill?’

  Jake nodded. He sat down and slipped Johnny’s glass under the table. When he put it back, it was full of Bacardi and Coke. The girls were drinking what looked like Pernod and black. They got their refills from under the table, too. They all clinked glasses.

  Jake said, ‘Have you seen what Sean’s done to himself?’

  Johnny nodded. ‘He was always a soul boy. Have you seen Kevin?’

  Jake hadn’t. Had he missed anything?

  ‘He’s in the lavs. You’ll have to wait.’

  Out on the floor the DJ was playing ‘Golden Years’, and Fairy was running through his scrapbook of mime. Bowie had studied mime in Europe at some time in the early seventies. Soon, Jake knew, the DJ would play ‘Port of Amsterdam’, which had a mime for every line… even the one that went, ‘He gets up and laughs and he zips up his fly.’ Jake didn’t know how many times he had seen Fairy, po-faced and oblivious, stroking his fly. Too often to find it funny any more.

  He said, ‘I’m going to look back there.’ He nodded to the Roxy Room.

  Each of the separate dance-floors was set into a grotto, their walls painted in coarse white stucco. The Bowie Room was decorated with different portraits of Bowie wobbling unevenly across the Polytex surface. The Roxy Room had similar pictures of Bryan Ferry, as well as one enormous painting of Lou Reed taken from the back cover of the Transformer album. Unlike the Bowie Room, there was less of a hard connection between the Roxy Room and its given name. Jake passed through a low arch and, for a moment, two different songs blended together… Bowie singing ‘Golden Years’ and, beneath it, the bass-heavy hum of a darker track. Jake hovered before moving forward, trying to guess what he was going to hear.

  As he stepped through, he heard the last bars of ‘Warm Leatherette’ by Grace Jones slowly segueing into ‘Homo Sapiens’ by Pete Shelley. Out in the rough circle of the dance-floor, Kevin Donnelly was dancing on his own, floating gracefully across the music but always, always in time with the beat. The boy was wearing a tight plastic T-shirt and Clash pants, both of them cast-offs from Johnny’s clothes pile.

  Jake crossed from the carpet to the wood-parquet floor and started feeling for a time signature, knowing it would be much, much slower than he expected… the speed was blowing through his body, gale-force five. Kevin Donnelly turned to smile at him, the boy was wearing blue eyeshadow, a slash of disco glitter across his cheeks and an artificial beauty spot high on his cheek. The style was white disco-trash, Debbie Harry reborn as a boy. Jake winked and then tried to refocus, concentrating on finding the beat.

  *

  It was closing in on one o’clock before they played ‘The Passenger’. Jake was steaming drunk, speeding like a maniac. Johnny wasn’t any clearer in the head but he was ready to argue any point Jake wanted.

  ‘What’s the matter with the song, I thought you liked Iggy Pop?’

  The chorus thundered through the speakers, the bierkeller chant of La La La La-La La La that Jake blamed on Bowie. The dance floor was full, arms and legs swinging like a skeltering cancan.

  ‘Listen to the words – they’re just ripped out of some novel. It’s all Bowie, hardly any Iggy at all.’

  Everything in the lyrics was about watching things and doing nothing. Main themes of alienation and all the other allergies you got in the scrawling pretence of Bowiedom. Nothing like Iggy who sang stark simple lines about being and doing, even if it was just being bored, being desperate, out for FUN.

  Johnny said, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?‘

  Jake’s mouth was moving, but so full of words, and the words so chock-full of venom, nothing was making sense.

  ‘Bowie. Crawling after Iggy, like because he can’t do it himself – can’t get in there like Iggy.’

  ‘Crap. It’s Bowie who’s bi. Iggy’s straight.’

  ‘Bowie isn’t anything. He’s the dumb-jerk friend who has to chase after someone else’s charisma, catching onto their reputation because he’s too timid to push out there himself.’

  Johnny was reeling around, saying to anyone who was close enough to hear, you want to listen to this: ‘He reckons Bowie has to run around after Iggy Pop because… what is it?’

  Jake was convinced. Rotating on the spot, his eyes blazing on the people around him, on their hair and their clothes and the kind of music they tried to dance to; everything, the whole fragile night-style. Looking at it all with speed-sharpened vision, he knew that without Iggy it was nothing but a faggoty pantomime. It needed something like the Ig to make it desperate, serious stuff. If it all came down to David Bowie, it was just tissue-thin, ludicrous…

  Johnny, still talking: ‘So, what you saying? That Bowie’s the jerk, friend, trying to look cool by tagging after Iggy?’

  And someone else was there, saying, ‘What, like Jake does with you?’

  Jake saw his own fist fly out, cracking against the boy’s nose. He put the next one into his gut and, as the boy started falling, he followed it with a kick. Around him, a girl screaming, someone shouting, ‘Psycho! He’s gone psycho!’ Yeah, well, psycho was serious. Better than limp-wrist mime boys in pyjama pants. Two pairs of hands were dragging on Jake’s shoulders, trying to pull him away from the boy on the ground. Jake tried to make his last kick count, but only grazed the boy’s head.

  He tore himself away, heading out across the dancefloor and up the steps, two by two. One more flight of stairs and the exit door was in front of him.

  *

  He ran through Manchester, end to end. The freezing winter rain couldn’t touch him. In the trough of Piccadilly Gardens he saw a straggling group of girl lategoers, en route for Rotters. He shouted ‘Slags!’ and they turned their faces briefly out of the rain to shout ‘Puff!’ back at him. Their wind-chapped legs hardly slowed. Jake hurtled on, through the stalls of the night buses, sneering at the Saturday-night drunks heading home. Across the road, at the foot of the Piccadilly Radio tower, he saw others eating bags of chips, sheltering from the rain in the night light of the Plaza. His amphetamine eyes saw them like bit-part scenery, a sheet of rain in front of them like a curtain. He flicked a V at them, calling them ‘Greasy shites!’ They threw chip bags at him, all of them falling short of the line that separated the rain-slick dark from their little square of light.

  Jake ran on diagonally through the traffic as he aimed for the Coach Station. The cars that swerved around him, they were shites too. He danced out of their headlights as he made for the opposite kerb.

  The gang that followed him from the bus shelter were only a few yards behind him when he finally caught the wet slap of their feet. He turned to meet them, three puke-faced kids about his age but smaller. They didn’t expect a fight. He swept away the feet of the leading one, and as the boy skittled across the road he met the second with a side-handed cut to the throat. As the boy trembled and began to sink, Jake put a boot to his groin, kicking on automatic as his eyes sidewinded to look for an easy attack on the third. He was too slow bringing his arm into a block as the third boy lashed out. Jake took the blow across his face and slipped on the wet road. Still, he got hold of a foot as the boy tried to follow his punch with a kick. All it took was a twist, Jake brought him down.

  Now it was a scrabble across the road, a flailing, lizard-like movement as the two of them wrestled for a footing, Jake still looking for a disabling blow before the lad’s friends got it together and rejoined the attack. When the shadow of a stick flashed across his eyes, he reared back, expecting to feel crunching pain on the forearm he’d raised to protect his face. It never came; the stick landed square on the skull of the other boy and broke it open.

  Jake was still only half aware of the man with the stick. There was no time to look at him as Jake turned to face the first boy – on his feet
now from his long slide across the road. Jake wanted the boy to come on to him, to get close enough for short work to the kidneys. Across the road, the man with the stick was whaling on the remaining kid, who was still on his knees from the boot Jake had put in his groin. As Jake met his opponent and grabbed hold of his lapels, the stick man ran over.

  Jake let go his grip, the stick swiped across his eyes one more time, then the boy went down. A squirt of blood hovered against the rain and disintegrated.

  The stick man had hold of Jake’s arm. ‘I’ve got a car.’ Jake was laughing now. Adrenalin and amphetamine, amphethalin and adrenaphine, a heart-choking mix.

  ‘Inside.’

  A car door opened. Jake collapsed into the front passenger seat. When the driver’s side opened, the stick came first, tossed onto the dash so it skidded and rested in front of Jake’s eyes. It was an old-fashioned policeman’s truncheon. A lathe-carved handgrip at one end, black blood glistening at the other.

  Jake turned. The man was panting but grinning. ‘Jake Powell? I been looking for you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Jake shook his head, he didn’t know why. The man was regular-looking: clean, regular features and straightforward smile. He was maybe in his mid-twenties.

  ‘Didn’t Kevin Donnelly say I was looking for you?’

  Jake was still trying to catch his breath. What had Donnelly said?

  ‘He told me you could copy some videos for me. I was about to talk to you last night, but the police hauled you over.’

  The car was moving now. The man reached round blindly and pulled a plastic bag off the back seat, and through the gap between their seats. ‘The videos.’

  Jake took the bag – three unboxed Betamax tapes. ‘Oh, yeah, I can get these copied.’

  The car turned at the end of the street. Out of his window, Jake saw the bodies of three boys on the road. ‘Thanks for that.’

  ‘No problem.’ The man flashed an open grin. ‘You were lucky I was just leaving Benny’s bar.’

  Jake must have looked confused.

  ‘Benny Silver. Lady Good-Day.’

  Jake clutched the bag of videos. ‘Oh, yeah, the tapes. He told me all about them.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The sign above the door used to give the licence-holder’s name as Benny Silver – not Benjamin. Jake had always wondered about that: why Good-Day chose the diminutive of a name he never even used… there had to be a story there. But that was fifteen years ago and someone else had their name above the door now. Jake didn’t have a back-up plan so he pushed on, at least to see how much the place had changed. He found himself in a large square room more than semi-full. The place was a little dingy and the music was still too loud. Basically just like it ever was. A squad of ageing queens were trying to get a party mood going in one corner. They were whooping, breaking into snatches of song and dance. Jake glanced their way as he tramped for the bar, and caught a few over-the-shoulder looks in return. Maybe he was double-focusing, but one of the men looked familiar. Then the face was gone again.

  Jake swayed for the toilet. The one guy standing at the urinal nodded a greeting. Jake stepped up and, after a moment, said, ‘This place hasn’t changed much.’

  ‘Since when, darling?’

  ‘1981.’

  ‘No, the old place hasn’t changed much since then.’

  Jake took another look at the man. In the dim light, he hadn’t realized just how old he was. He had to be a good person to ask about Good-Day.

  The man was still talking: ‘…1978, during that huge discotheque craze, we had a complete redecoration… 1985, I think, we laid a new carpet, which was a big thrill. Then, it must have been ’93, the boards came off the windows… orders of the new management. I believe they wanted to let a little light on the matter, but it was a horrible mistake. Most of us, we look our best at thirty watts and below. Not you, of course, dear…’

  The last line came with a smile. Jake managed to return it. Not so drunk that he couldn’t smile and zip up at the same time. Before moving over to the wash-basin, keeping it casual, he said, ‘Good-Day sold up, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sold out for a million. Lucky bitch.’

  A third man had just entered, so short and squat he had to elbow extra room to stand at the urinal. He had a nasal voice, apologizing for the crush. ‘Excuse me, darling.’ Then, as he got himself settled: ‘Good-Day? Who’s asking about that cunt?’

  Jake said, ‘He got a million for this place?’

  The second man: ‘Oh, at the ab-so-lute least, believe me.’

  ‘So what happened to him? He moved to the Bahamas or something?’

  ‘Good-Day move? You have to be joking. Who’d have him?’

  The first man again: ‘Who’d love him like we do?’

  ‘The cunt.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’

  Jake said, ‘He still comes here?’

  ‘He’s buying the bloody drinks, darling. Champagne all round.’

  Jake headed out of the lavs, aiming for the queen mothers’ corner. Ahead of him, a dapper, baldheaded man rose out of his seat, a shade unsteady on his old bandy legs. As he wobbled for the back door, he showed the slimmest ring of trimmed grey hair around the base of his skull and ears. That was the reason Jake hadn’t recognized him. If Good-Day was ever seen wigless, his hair was always combed in the Bobby Charlton flick-over. Then, again, the guy was now a lot older. In fifteen/sixteen years, a middle-aged man can become a geriatric. It had happened to Good-Day.

  Jake easily caught up with him. They were in the back corridor, Good-Day halfway up a staircase, but Jake grabbed him by the wrist.

  *

  Good-Day sat on his chair, his head turned to the net curtains and the street below. The table between them had a rich walnut surface, a lace doily spread at its centre. Jake curled his fingers round his glass of whisky, looking down at its full-length reflection in the deep glaze of the wood.

  He said, ‘This is where you live?’

  ‘One room. I rent, but the furniture’s all mine.’

  ‘You ask me, the furniture’s a mistake.’ The problem was there was so much of it. Besides the bed, the table and its four dining chairs, Good-Day had a cabinet-sideboard affair, a settee and a big old radiogram.

  Good-Day shrugged. ‘I know. When my mother died, I was only going to keep a few of her things. I guess I was too distraught to think rationally…’

  ‘You could always get somewhere bigger. I hear you sold out for a million.’

  ‘Did I fuck! Still, it was quite a bit.’

  ‘There’s not been many improvements.’

  ‘It’s a joke. All the bright new bars opened around here, getting the bright young men, and this one’s full of sad cases.’

  ‘Why do you stay?’

  ‘It’s home. In fact, it’s better than home; it’s a hotel. I get my bed made, breakfast too. I eat in one of the new restaurants, or walk into Chinatown. As far as the bar goes, I leave it to the new manager. Maybe he’ll show some imagination if he’s allowed to get on with it ’

  The man – Jake found it easier to think of him as Benny Silver because he looked so unfamiliar – shrugged sadly.

  ‘I’m retired. Leave the international corporate homosexuals to run the Village. How’s that for change?’

  Jake still wasn’t sure this old man recognized him. He’d said his name, earlier, as he twisted his arm. Benny Silver just nodded and asked him to come through to his room. The room was a complete surprise: all this clunky Deco, specially tailored to the dark Manchester suburbs by being as dark and as heavy as possible.

  Jake said, ‘When did your mother die?’

  ‘Four, five months.’

  ‘This what her house looked like?’

  Benny Silver looked around. ‘Pretty much – the parlour anyway. Sick, isn’t it?’

  Jake nodded. It was an old woman’s place through and through, even to the smell of damp face-powder. The smell reacted badly with the whisky.

  Benny said, �
��She was ninety-two, would have been ninety-three last week.’

  ‘That’s old.’

  ‘Uh-huh. So maybe I’ll be here for another thirty years. I should find the energy to do something. Start afresh.’

  The Jewish candelabrum placed on the doily, that was Art Deco too, solid, cubic and silver. Jake was left staring at it while Benny bustled over a Teasmade in the corner. When he returned, he was short of breath but that was only his fatness, not any disease.

  Jake said, ‘You do remember me?’

  ‘Of course. Jake – Johnny’s friend.’

  ‘Johnny was killed fifteen years ago.’ He didn’t have to say it. The way Benny trembled with the teapot, it was clear he knew.

  ‘What about Kevin Donnelly?’

  Benny didn’t look up. Just said: ‘He’s dead too.’

  ‘I meant, did you know him?’

  ‘Yes, I knew him.’

  So, there was only one question: ‘Who killed them?

  ‘Gary Halliday.’

  And the police had him safely locked up in prison. Jake poured his whisky into the cup of tea, took a sip and said, ‘You always knew about Gary Halliday, didn’t you?’

  The man nodded. Jake took another sip from his cup. Even with the whisky, it tasted like old woman’s tea stewed in globby cream. He flung the teacup out into the dead space of the room. It seemed to hang for a moment, reaching the tip of its arc beneath the lightshade, then accelerated into the radiogram. The cup shattered, the tea steamed off the Bakelite panel.

  Jake said, ‘You want to do something about this room, I got ideas.’

  Benny was saying, Oh no no no. ‘I’m not up to this.’

  ‘You’re only, what, in your sixties. I bet you could cope with a lot more than you think. You knew about Gary Halliday and you didn’t do anything.’

  Benny was chewing the inside of his mouth. When at last he spoke, he said, ‘I didn’t do anything. How many times have I heard people say that: they didn’t do anything – they knew, yet they did nothing? I’ve heard it all my life. I’m Jewish, so you imagine what they were talking about. So how do you think I feel? I knew about a monster and I kept quiet about it. You want to know why?’