Smack

by Melvin Burgess

  “You look full of the joys today, David,” he said, eyeing my dandelions over the counter.

  “Yeah. My girlfriend’s coming to stay,” I told him. I think I only went in there so I could tell someone the news.

  “Hence the bouquet, eh?” he said, nodding at the dandelions.

  “Yeah.” I laughed. I took a Twix bar and dug in my pocket for the money. He didn’t laugh, but then he never did. He always kept his face completely straight, except his eyebrows were permanently up in the air. You hardly ever saw him move his face, even when he was cracking you up with laughter. Deadpan.

  “That’s good news then.” He didn’t take my money. He just looked at me. “Leaving her folks like you did, is she?” he wanted to know.

  I looked at him. “Yeah…”

  “How old is she, then, David?”

  I didn’t dare tell him how old she really was. I said, “Sixteen.” That’s how old I’d told him I was. I started eating the Twix to hide my embarrassment.

  “Nice.” He stood there with his hands hanging by his sides watching me. “Where you putting her up, then?” I was beginning to feel miserable again. “Honeymoon suite in the Hotel Derry?”

  “Yeah…” I put the money back in my pocket.

  “Thank you, Skolly, for the free Twix bar.”

  “Oh! Yeah…I’m really sorry. I was thinking…”

  “That’s all right. Not a nice place for a young lady, though, is it, David?”

  I just hadn’t thought. He was right! Albany Road was all right for me but not for Gemma. You get all sorts in there—tramps, alcoholics, junkies. Most of them are all right but some of them…Once or twice I’ve seen the alkies with women with them, but you never see any young women in there. The girls all sleep out in doorways, in public…

  I never thought why.

  “Here.” I held out the money again, but he waved it away.

  “Don’t be daft.”

  I was about to put it back in my pocket but then I had second thoughts. “No, take it. Or I won’t be able to keep coming in.”

  “Ah…”

  “You’ll think I’m begging.”

  “A time and place for everything, eh, David? I take your point.” He leaned across and took my money. “I’ll give it back to you later on, okay?”

  I laughed. He was so funny. His face was funny. He was quite fat and bald, and he always looked as if you’d just given him a mildly unpleasant surprise, as if you’d told him the price of chocolate had just gone up or something.

  “Life is a complicated business,” he said. Another customer came in and he turned to them. I nodded and started for the door, but he called out, “Hang on a minute…”

  I stood and waited while he sold a newspaper. I felt dreadful again. I hadn’t thought. I was being selfish. I couldn’t ask Gemma to come and live like this with me!

  “She’s not coming to stay. She’s just visiting,” I began when the customer left.

  “What you doing tonight?”

  “Well, nothing…”

  “Be here at six o’clock. I’ve got someone to see. We might be able to sort something out for you.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ve gotta see someone, all right? You be here at six. I might just tell you to clear off home.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Scholl!”

  “Mr. Scholl.” He rolled his eyes briefly. “Skolly.”

  “Thanks, Skolly.”

  “Go on, piss off.”

  I practically skipped down the road. Everything was working out! Gemma coming, Skolly taking me on. Well, I say that, but of course not everything was going to work out. There was one thing that never was going to—and that was the really big one.

  My mum.

  I’d made myself this promise not to ring up for a whole month. The trouble was, I kept thinking I’d feel better if I spoke to her; but I knew it wasn’t true. I’d left her a note when I went but that was ages ago. It was Gemma’s idea not to ring her for a bit. She said my mum’d just make me feel really bad, maybe she’d even talk me into coming back. But things were going so well I was thinking maybe I could cope with it. I’d only been away a couple of weeks, but it was the longest I’d ever been away from her.

  I knew I shouldn’t ring. Gemma was right. You don’t know my mum, she can make you do anything. I’m more scared of her than I am of Dad, really.

  In the end I thought, See what happens tonight with Mr. Scholl. I mean, if he got me sorted out with somewhere to live, everything would be okay and I could think about getting in touch with Mum. If not, well, that’d be different. That’d be a disaster. I’d have to ring up Gemma and tell her not to come. Because Skolly was right. You couldn’t ask Gemma to come and live in a place like Albany Road.

  The dandelion didn’t come out like I wanted. The colours were too pale. I wanted these really deep yellows and the black like velvet behind it. You can’t do that sort of thing with pencil crayons. Pastel sticks would’ve done it. I had a set at home, and I was really mad with myself for not bringing them. But they’re so fragile I thought they’d get broken.

  Skolly

  He was there. Well, he would be, wouldn’t he?

  “Good evening, David.”

  “Hello, Mr. Skolly.”

  I said, “Just Skolly.” I headed off up the road and he came loping after me. He was a tall lad, a good six inches over my head.

  “It’s really nice of you to help me out…”

  “I haven’t done anything yet.” Very polite boy. That’s one of the things that made me take to him. He was bobbing along beside me, looking sincere. He had his leather jacket on and his rucksack on his back. You could tell he hadn’t been on the streets for long because his rucksack was still fairly clean. Jeans, boots, long hair. He looked the same as he usually did. They all look the same as they usually do. They tend not to have an extensive wardrobe.

  He was the first one I ever felt like helping, apart from doling out money and fags and chocolate. Most of the others are either depressed or stupid. They ought to be back at home with their mums and dads.

  The first time I saw him I gave him a couple of quid and asked him what he thought he was playing at.

  He just glanced up and touched the side of his face. I hadn’t noticed the bruises. He didn’t have to say any more, he looked so miserable. I nodded and gave him a couple of Mars bars on top of the money and his face changed. It startled me. His entire face changed. He beamed at me. I’d really made him happy, for a minute or two, anyway. That made me feel good. I like feeling good.

  He didn’t seem to have any front. You need all the front you can get in this old world. Look at me. I’m nearly all front. What you see is what you get. But this kid—you only had to look at him to know he’d believe whatever you wanted him to. You had the feeling that if you didn’t hold his hand he’d get crushed in the stampede.

  I proffered a packet of Bensons. “Fag?”

  “Thank you, but I don’t smoke.”

  “You will,” I told him. Practically everyone living rough smokes.

  “You fill yourself up with tar,” he said. He got in front of me and peered into my face. “There, it’s turning your skin grey,” he told me.

  I stopped short in the middle of the pavement. An old lady nearly collided with me from behind. “Pack it in!”

  I mean, there I was helping him out and he was telling me I was turning grey. He just grinned and I thought…you bugger. He was teasing me. He had me going, too.

  We carried on down Picton Street and I thought, He’s right, though. My old dad’s eighty-two, he smokes like a chimney and he’s the colour of fag ash.

  I smoke cigars myself. When I was younger I always tried to have a fag hanging out of the corner of my mouth by way of advertisement. As a tobacconist, if I don’t smoke, who will? You see a lot of tobacconists these days—particularly the Asians, I may say—who never smoke anything. That’s not right. How can you respect your customers if you think it’s stupid to sm
oke? How can you know what you’re selling ’em? I reckon I could tell a Benson from a Regal blindfold, from smell alone. Or I used to, anyway.

  I gave up fags, I was smoking too many. A cigar is the ideal smoke for a tobacconist because you can always have one in your gob, but it keeps going out. That way, you’re still smoking even when you’re not, if you see what I mean.

  “How about a Mars bar, then?”

  He took that. I always keep a pocketful of chocolate bars, again on account of being a tobacconist. I eat them, too. Consequently I’m fat and permanently short of breath, but at least I’m not a hypocrite.

  And I’m well informed, too. I read the newspapers.

  Richard was waiting in the shop for us. George Dole’s old electrical shop, that is. He’s squatted it a few weeks before.

  “Hello, Skolly.” He beamed at me. Or rather, he beamed at the door behind me. He’s a strange person, Richard. Very friendly but—he’s always smiling but he never actually seems to look straight at you, for some reason.

  He’s like me, Richard is, a bit of an act. “Here’s the lad I was telling you about.” I gave David a little shove in the back and he stumbled towards the door. Richard held his hand out.

  “Always delighted to meet a new candidate for the squatting movement,” he said.

  “Thanks, thanks…” said David.

  I made to go. Richard was disappointed.

  “Aren’t you going to join us, Skolly?”

  “I’ve got a home of me own, thanks.”

  “No, for tea. I’m making burgers especially for you.”

  “Burgers?”

  Every time he saw me he was inviting me round to eat some disgusting mess of beans or sprouted seeds or yoghurt.

  “Especially for you,” repeated Richard, grinning at the street opposite.

  I paused. The missis was away visiting the brood in Taunton. I had been planning on going down the pub, but then the pub was open all night. Richard only wanted to convert me, but unlike some I could mention, I’ve never lost my curiosity. Besides, let him try and convert me. It might amuse me.

  I pushed David in front of me and followed them up the stairs to the flat above the shop.

  When I first found out that George Dole’s old electrical shop had been squatted, I was quite upset. George used to be a friend of mine until his heart did for him—that was about eighteen months before. I don’t like squatters. What’s to stop ’em working and paying rent? And they’re such a scabby bunch. They like to think they belong to the underworld, but most of the crooks I know work for a living…

  I first had my suspicions that this was different from the usual type of squat because this little notice appeared on the front door, announcing that the place was squatted and that the police had been informed. It just goes to show what this country’s come to if the villains go and tell the police what they’re doing, so they can be left alone to get on with it. I mean, can you imagine it with any other sort of crime? A little notice going up: “This bank will be robbed tomorrow at 11 am,” and the police touching their helmets and saying, “All in order, sir, let us know if you have any problems…”

  After a few days the usual lot appeared—scabby-looking yoofs with boots two sizes too big and Mohican haircuts scurrying in and out the door like so many rats. I thought to myself, There’s more to this than that lot. But when I saw Richard come out, I knew at once it must be him.

  Richard had the earring and the short hair. He had what you might call a slight Mohican—his crew cut was longer on the middle of his head than at the sides. But he was a lot older than the others, in his mid-twenties, maybe, whereas the rat yoofs were sixteen, seventeen. I was standing in the doorway of my shop watching the street go by when he emerged, smiling to himself. He locked the door behind him and walked off, still smiling a half gormless grin at the wind, at the buildings…I dunno, just at being Richard, I expect.

  I left the missis in charge of the shop and collared him.

  I was concerned, you see. There was stock left in that shop. George Dole never had any relatives as far as I was aware, but someone must have owned it.

  I was prepared to be angry. I poked him in the stomach and I said, “I don’t know why you bothered leaving home.” But he just opened his mouth and smiled even wider.

  “I’m always happy to have relations with the neighbours,” he said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Maybe.” I told him about the electrical stuff. He invited me in for a cup of tea. Well, I was taken aback. I thought squatters were so busy smoking pot and watching the dirt grow on top of the fridge, they never had anything to do with anyone.

  “You understand my concern,” I told him as he opened the door.

  “Naturally. I have no respect for theft,” he announced proudly, which made me bristle a bit. I’ve done a bit of thieving in my own time. Of course I never told him that.

  I was impressed. All the electrical stuff had been packed in boxes, neatly labelled and carried out and stored in a little room behind the shop.

  “I must admit I did help myself to a house fuse when I was getting the electric on,” he said. “But I’ve already replaced that.” And he looked at the door and beamed in pleasure.

  “But you don’t mind nicking someone’s house, though,” I told him.

  “Not if it’s standing empty and there’s people sleeping on the streets. Of course, property is a rather strange concept for me…”

  I thought I was going to get a lecture but he shut up and went to put the kettle on.

  Now if it had been me, I’d have had that gear out and sold it before you could count to three. But Richard was moral. He really thought that squatting a shop and not nicking the stock was going to change society. That was why he was so delighted to have me round for tea. He thought that if he got enough people like me on his side, Parliament would fall tomorrow.

  It transpired he worked in a bicycle shop on the Ashley Road but he made it his business in his spare time opening up squats for the kids round about. He’d break in, set up the electrics, post the little notices, inform the police, stay there a few nights until it became clear whether or not they were going to get any trouble. Then he’d go home for a few nights until the next one came up.

  I had extreme doubts about eating anything in any squat. This one was perfectly disgusting. The place had deteriorated beyond all credence since I’d had tea with Richard that time.

  “You don’t expect me to eat in here, do you?” I said. I rubbed my toe into the grease on the floor. “I wouldn’t unwrap a bar of chocolate in here.”

  Richard was tying on an enormous white apron; it was as clean as the rest of the place was dirty.

  “Don’t worry Skolly. I’ve brought everything in, even the pan to cook on. I won’t feed you beetle-burgers.”

  “Do they all live like this?”

  “This one is particularly bad,” he confessed. He looked terribly unhappy about it. I could see one or two of the locals glancing at each other uncomfortably. “It gives squatting a bad name,” said Richard in a loud voice. The yoofs pulled faces and one of them walked out.

  I settled myself down in an armchair at the side of the kitchen table and waited.

  David was standing in a corner with his eyes popping out of his head, trying to take everything in at once. He couldn’t take his eyes off Richard. I’d told him on the way what Richard did. He obviously thought Richard ought to be the next Prime Minister.

  “I think what you’re doing is fantastic,” he blurted out. Blushing, God bless him.

  “Thank you,” said Richard, beaming out of the window. “In that case you’ll be delighted to hear that we’re going to open a new squat tonight. Virgin territory” For a second the poor kid looked terrified and I thought he was going to bottle out. But then he started frowning and nodding in a determined fashion. I thought, Ahhhhhhhh, sweet. Because for half the kids squatting is just a large form of vandalism. But poor old David had never broken the law
in his life, you could tell by just looking at him.

  There were a couple of yoofs rather older than the rat pack I’d seen going in and out of the shop. Richard introduced them to David as his new housemates. “This is Vonny, this is Jerry,” he said. “They’re anarchists,” he announced to the kitchen light switch, and grinned so much I thought his teeth were going to fall out. That remark was for my benefit. I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye to see what reaction he was getting. The bloke looked embarrassed. Vonny nodded and shook my hand politely and offered me a drink.

  I accepted a can of cold beer.

  David went to help Richard with the burgers and pretty soon the two of them were deep in confab about Squatting, Anarchism, the Right of the Individual to Break the Law, and various other forms of cobblers.

  The burgers were quite nice actually. Richard took great care that mine never touched the surroundings, which I appreciated. I had two.

  “Not bad for homemade,” I told him.

  “As good as a McDonald’s?” he wanted to know.

  “Not a bad flavour, but a tendency to fall to pieces in your bun gives them a lower mark,” I replied.

  “But then I expect Macs use meat in theirs,” he announced, beaming at the ceiling.

  “And what did you use, Richard?” I enquired.

  “Oh, soya protein. I’m a vegan, didn’t you know?” He was over the moon that he’d made me eat that stuff. He was actually giggling and guffawing to himself. I suppose he thought I was on my way to anarchy, now that I’d eaten beanburgers. I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t look any good in earrings and my bald patch prohibits a Mohican.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him my missis uses soya quite regularly.

  I don’t know how I managed to end up going out with them that night. Richard was as pleased as punch. He said it was because I’d provide perfect cover, but of course he thought I was turning into one of them.

  You might ask, with some reason, what’s a Tory like me doing helping the squatters? A proper Tory, mind, not one of your watered-down, middle-of-the-road ones. If I had my way, all the darkies’d get sent back home. Why not? They have their culture, we have ours. If you knew the number of people I do who’ve turned round and found themselves stuck in the middle of the Carib-bloody-bean and it was Bristol City twenty years ago, so would you. And cut down on the social security and all that.