Killing Time at Catterick

by Jan Needle

  “Ten,” said Clare. “It was in the Gazette. Ten of ’em at least!”

  “Rosy, that was her name,” said Leigh-Ann, suddenly. “I knew it was something like that. Rosy.”

  “Nah,” said Ally. “Rosy Baines got knocked down by a lorry, that’s why she was in the paper. Stupid cow.”

  “That’s a different Rosy,” said Leigh-Ann, sulkily. “’Ow would you know, anyway? She was my mate, not yourn.”

  We listened till we got dead bored, and then we took them to the club, like we’d agreed. They still hadn’t asked us for anything, not even snout, which was amazing, but they’d filled us in on “all the useful local facts” as Shahid put it, laughing his socks off. In fact we weren’t even sure that there were really any gypsies until we turned the last corner to the club. And yeah, there were. Lots of them. And local lads with turnips in their hair. And squaddies. Nothing going off yet, but you could see it was going to be a lively night. Tasty.

  It had potential. Shitloads!

  Seven

  Like every army town I’ve ever been in, this one was pretty weird. It’s as if the people aren’t all there, really, they’re sort of inbred or something. If Catterick’s famous for anything, they tell you when you get there, it’s famous for a shit night out. This one was Catterick only more so. Strung out along a long dank country road, with fields all round where the locals only went to shag their favourite sheep or bury babies. The lively end, where we’d been at last night, had cafes, discos, dance halls, bowling – and was about as lively as a frozen turd. This end had the Perokeeto.

  From the outside it looked like what it was – an old-style cinema that had gone under when the multis had come in. Not that there was a multi, even at the jumpin’ end of town (joke, by the way) ’cause we’d thought we might grab a movie earlier, until we asked. The only reason it was here at all was that this end also had the off-road training base and the small-arms and hand-to-hand combat ranges, so lots of squaddies spent lots of time here, in a sort of separate barracks area. Naturally, the army hadn’t thought about what they could do for pleasure – the army never does. It’s a funny thing I learned quite fast when I joined up – they never learn.

  Thousands and thousands of blokes, mainly led by halfwits, who work and train and run and harden up, and once they’ve reached a certain point of fitness and frustration, get given time off with fuck all to do. There’s sport, of course, and there’s daytime TV and Playstations and Wii. There’s evenings off and most weekends, and the local slags to help you enjoy it. Army town slags. Boggin’. ’Angin’. The only ones worth screwing are married – the army wives – and that can get you into trouble. The rest are your Leigh-Anns and Allys, who I wouldn’t touch with yours, mate, let alone me own. Two pubs down this end. Two pubs and one so-called nightclub. The bleeding Perokeeto.

  Another thing about army town women, is they’ll go with anyone at all, and they’ve got some kind of death wish. That’s where the pikies come in, if you think about it. I mean, I’ve got nowt against them, because I’ve never talked to one, they’ve never done me any harm. I’ve seen their shitty camps, with their shitty women and their shitty kids, and quite honestly I don’t believe it when people tell me they’re loaded, because if they were they wouldn’t live the way they do, would they? They’re just poor dumb bastards who stick together with their bloody dogs to keep off rubberneckers and the council, and they get kicked around from place to place like sacks of useless crap. No woman in her right mind would go near any of the men – ratty little Irish bastards with ferret’s eyes, most of ’em – and them that do are slags, aren’t they? You could see the pikies outside the Perokeeto, and you could see the local girls. You could see the trouble hanging in the evening air.

  “Why do they do it?” I said. Jesus, I was feeling philosophical. “Why do they fucking do it?”

  I didn’t mean just our girls, who’d left us now we’d got them in, thank God. I meant all the rest of them as well, including Ashton, who’d been absorbed into the crowd, who’d gone off sniffing like a dog on heat for anything worth hunting. The place was like a swamp, a throbbing, heaving jungle of bass and drums, with flashing lights and a roar of shouted talk that almost matched the music.

  “Because they want a life!” roared Shahid, close to my head. “They’re desperate. I’m desperate for a drink, an’ all. Shall we get some E’s?”

  “Lager!” I shouted back. “Fuck E’s. If there’s going to be a punch-up, I don’t want to have a smile stuck on me face, do I? That way you get a fist through it!”

  The rush at the bar was horrendous, and the aggression was already building up. It’s as if they do it on purpose – not enough people serving, not enough space to cram the punters in. Lager squirted out of plastic hosepipes, never a glass filled to the top, no time or room to check your change. Then every now and then the shriek of girls when they find out how much the bastards are charging for a bottle of water – more than bloody Scotch. I checked out later in the toilets when I went for a slash, and there were no taps either. Take ecstasy, take water, even garrison slags know that. So do the Perokeeto owners, obviously. Ah well. Dead girls must be good publicity in this one horse burg, maybe.

  The other incredible thing was they were letting gippoes in. Great rules they had on the door in this place – no girls without a bloke, no bottles, no lads already pissed. But in came the pikies, all brown and slinky-eyed. Race thing, Shahid called it. They had to let him in, and even scum like Ashton, and the gippoes could call the cops on the same basis. “Oh please, sir, it’s me human rights! It’s the race relations act!” And as they’d come for trouble, because they liked a fight as much as drunken squaddies do, they were probably tooled up as well. Forward planning. When it kicked off, it would really kick off good.

  We went for a wander when we’d got our pints, because all in all there was damn all else to do. We all liked dancing when the time was right, who doesn’t? But the time wasn’t right tonight, it was farcical. Ninety per cent of the people on the floor were female, dancing round their handbags like Blackburn in the old days, only not so well-dressed. All the wall space was jammed with blokes, all holding pints in plastic glasses, all glaring at the dancers as if they wished they’d die. And glaring at each other, in the flashing gloom, sizing up who was sizing them up, and where the fighting would break out.

  Shahid shouted something in my ear. I couldn’t hear him. There was beer and curry on his breath when he bawled again. That was close enough.

  “Look! Over there! It’s Goughie!”

  Ashton – back from his crumpet count (“minus bugger all worth shagging”) – nudged me from the other side.

  “Sod Gough!” he yelled, “Look over there! The Colour Sergeant! And there’s that SAS man! Christ, it’s big boys’ fun tonight!”

  The Colour Sergeant was a real big shock, because people of his rank don’t mix with us scum, hardly ever. Within two minutes I’d clocked two other sergeants, and then the CSM! Jesus H. Christ! Serious!

  “What SAS man?” Shahid roared. “What you on about?”

  Ashton and me exchanged a look. Quite good that Sha didn’t know everything, after all. We’d talked to this guy in the bar at camp one night. He spoke like an officer, but he was all right.

  “Him!” I said. “Ginger hair! He’s only with us for the cover. He works in Kosovo in plain clothes. Sort of spy.”

  Shahid looked at me as if I’d gone mental. Miffed because he didn’t know, I guess. Ashton caught the look.

  “Oh fuck off, Stan, you don’t know everything. Listen. He’s got ginger hair, but no one takes the piss, nobody. That makes him mega, okay? Just fucking think about it, you stuck up bastard.”

  But Shahid had lost interest. He’d clocked someone else.

  “Mart!” he said. “Over by that pillar. And Bollocks and Big Dave. Christ, Mart’s black eye’s come out all right, ain’t it? Like a rotten plum.”

  “Well, it were him what told us there’d be a kick-
off,” I said. “Course he’s here, it stands to reason. Steer clear, I reckon. He’ll get us too, give him half a chance if there’s a riot.”

  “I ain’t scared of Martin,” Shahid began, but Ash had picked out some others in the click – Chas Hicks and Geordie George. They were in the druggies’ corner, naturally, and Josh P would be there somewhere. In the gents maybe, shooting up. Then I saw Billy ’Unt and Timmo Hawes, which just left Sambo. Who had more sense, in my opinion. You don’t get to be dictator of Bongoland mixing in crap like this.

  We just stood there for a while, like. Spare pricks at a wedding, more or less. Observers, maybe – that sounded better, didn’t it? We watched Martie trying to grease up to the Colour and the CSM, and they didn’t fuck him off, which was bad news. They were gathering a team.

  “I wonder why they’re bothering,” said Sha. “I mean, they don’t need these nasty little scrubbers to hang around with, do they? Why should they care if the gippoes want to give them HIV?”

  “Ooh!” said Ashton. “Anal! I like that.”

  “Anyway, where are they?” Sha went on. “The pikies? You white bastards all look the same to me! Let’s have another pint. I’m going to put a Scotch in mine. Two. It’s Saturday, lads. Where’s the fucking buzz?”

  The crowd were swirling now, but certainly I hadn’t seen no bloodshed, or even moves towards it. But as we drifted off to get the booze, I did see Corporal Mart again, and he’d seen us. He was tracking through the dancers like a gundog. More like a big brown bear, in fact. With a sore head.

  “Wanker watch!” I said. “He’s after us. Melt-melt-melt!”

  Fat chance in this crush. He saw us trying to evade and he threaded faster. He kicked some girl’s handbag and she swore at him (we couldn’t hear it, obviously) and he swore back and made a lovely sign. A bloke nearby sort of lunged at him – you leave my slag alone, even if I’ve never met her in my life before – but Martie jerked away and bashed on in our direction, saving himself for later would be my guess.

  “Ere! Slags!” he shouted, when he was near enough. “Where the fuck’ve you been hiding? There’s going to be trouble, and we’re in with the CSM, I’ve volunteered us. Clear-out time for pikey rapists. The Final Solution. And there’ll be drinks in it, he’s well made up.”

  “We’ve got our own,” I said. “We’re on our way for top-ups now.”

  “Fuck that!” said Martin. “Booze afterwards. It’s getting to the point!”

  “We’ll be with you, Martie!” yelled Ash. “You brown-nose bastard.” (That bit was lower, nearly in a normal voice, nearly in my ear’ole.) He shouted again, top-level: “Sorry, can I call you Mart? Are Shahid’s sins forgiven?”

  He loved to push his luck, did Ashton, but Mart didn’t remember we’d “betrayed” him, probably. Leastways, before he could speak, or even put his brain into the proper gear, it was too late. There was a terrific burst of girlie screaming from across the hall, and a sort of surge around the edges that bulged the drinkers into the dance floor, knocking the ladies into their bags and each other’s arms and legs. Ashton even managed to get a flash of fanny in the midst of it, he told me later. Mental.

  “Oi-oi!” said the Lance. “Chocks away! Come on you bastards! The Skulls forever!”

  You what, I thought. You fucking what? Who in the name of bollocks were the Skulls?

  It wasn’t the big kick-off yet, but it was starting. Mart shot off towards the CSM and mates, and Shahid, then Ash, bashed after him. I got lost in a mass of screaming totty – running for the bar and lavatories, the two most important places when you think about it – and I din’t try to fight clear. The kick-off end was getting frantic, and I saw two pikies and three squaddies throw themselves through the air and get into the ruck. I also saw a pint beer glass flashing and flying through the light-show like in a magic trick, half-full and upright, not spilling a drop. It landed on the back of some girl’s head – only plastic so hardly fatal – but she let out a shriek I heard from twenty feet away. The beer poured down her face and neck in gushes, and she must have thought her brain was pissing blood.

  There was a screech through the loudspeakers as the DJ scarred his vinyls, and his voice came on all shaky in a shout. “Calm down, please! Calm down everybody! The police are on their way!”

  Then, like a prat, he put the music on again, and it was drowned out by a gigantic roar. Oh God, that lovely word, “police.” Now there’d be some fun. The bloodbath could commence.

  I’d had enough, I must say. I’ve never really gone in for this sort of thing, and I wanted out, I had no taste for it. The rush towards the door was getting bigger and more violent, and the floor was full of screamers now, girls who’d been separated from their mates and handbags, some on their hands and knees, some jumping over them, all deadly heels and tree trunk country legs in stripes and glitter. There was a flanking movement over to my right where Martie and my mates had gone, but I kept my face the other way in case Mart or some other bastard eyeballed me. I wondered, not for the first time, if I really wasn’t cut out for the army. Maybe I was fucking gay!

  By the time I reached the door there was all hell breaking out, pandemonium. The music had stopped for good, the screams were almost constant, and it was only the flashing lights that still told you it was party time. I liked that. A bloodbath breaking out and the wankers couldn’t even get round to turning the main lights on. Then they did, as I pushed out into the lobby. I looked back into a sea of seething bodies, everybody slugging everybody else and the tarts darting about like overweight butterflies. Some of them could swing a handbag though. I saw a couple of right good shots go in.

  The bouncers looked at me a bit bemused when I went to get out into the street, because there were still masses trying to burst in, blokes and girls. The tannoy was booming all over everything, but you couldn’t hear a single word, you never can, can you, it’s part of the tradition, part of what us English do so well. I often wondered if we’d be any different when we were actually at the war, when we were actually being shot at and bombed out in the East. I doubted it. More and more I fucking doubted it. Like them bombings down the Smoke. The police radios wouldn’t work underground, like everyone had told the government year after fucking year, so they tried mobile phones, till some top genius closed the network down because it was too busy, and got promoted! Forward planning.

  It was quite nice out in the street when I got clear. There were lots of punters there already, and the ruck was going to spread from inside to out, no danger, pretty soon. But for now it was just gangs of eager lads, gangs of totty tottering on their heels, and lurking gangs of pikies wondering if they were the heroes or the villains. Traffic still running, not a cop in sight despite what the DJ had said, and a smell of frying onions from a burger van. Mm, I thought – burger. No, I thought, too close to the seat of the fire. We’d passed a pizza place further down the road. I’d go and get a pizza and a tin of Coke.

  Big shock when I got there though. Halfway along the line of customers, there was bloody Goughie! He must have got out of the punch-up even quicker than I had, which made me feel a wee bit queasy. I mean, I’d left for clever reasons, I couldn’t see the point of it, quite honestly. But Goughie was a wimp, a nonce, a wanker. He’d get called a yellow bastard if they found out he’d run. So where did that leave me?

  Time to split. I didn’t need no pizza anyway. And he turned and saw me, and his face took on a look that said it all – scum of the earth. My stomach sort of dropped, but I might have even blushed as well, I really had felt bad about the way we’d thrown him to the wolves down at the curry place. I sort of coughed.

  “You got away okay, then? From them Paki lunatics? That’s all right then, eh?”

  He had a funny face, Gough. Sort of long and pale, and spotty. No bruises, though. He didn’t smile.

  “No thanks to you lot. Your idea of pals, was it? Your idea of how to treat a mucker from the mob?”

  “It was Shahid, really,” I mumbled. Then I
felt really like a traitor. Christ, Gough was nowt to me. He was a pillock. Prat.

  “What a twat,” he said. “Too tight to pay for his own fucking curry, is he?”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said. “In actual fact he thought you’d be...well, he knew you’d get away okay. He was dead impressed.”

  Sound stupid enough? It did to me.

  “Anyway,” I said, more aggressively, “what you moaning on about? It was a laugh, that’s all. We waited for you down the street. Thought you’d catch up later.”

  “He’s a Paki twat,” said Goughie. “And that other one’s a cunt-struck coon. I never thought much of you anyway, but when you took up with that lot I knew the lads was right. You’re a nigger-lover. Or is that a touch of the tar-brush round your eyes? Hassan, eh? Hassan, is that your problem?”

  I’d seen Gough bullied till he nearly died. I’d seen him go through six months of pure fucking hell in training, and I’d sort of sympathised – no, I had. I’d even tried to help him once, when the corporals had beasted him in the showers with buckets of cold piss and rubbed shit into his cheeks like L’Oréal (because he was worth it, yes you get the picture), and I’d felt really pissed off with the stunt we’d played him at the curry shop, I’d damn nearly told him we were out of order. But suddenly I’d found out why it happened. For half a second I felt like smacking in his face, his pasty, sneering, wanky little face. We were in a line of people queuing at the till, and they were watching us. One woman had two little kids in tow and I realised she was terrified. It hit me.

  But I’d not done anything. We were just talking to each other, separated by these punters waiting for a snack. And I was enraged, I was going to jump him, I’d felt a great black wave of fury, roaring out of nowhere. I saw this woman’s face, and then it hit me.

  “That’s very nice that is,” I said. I almost killed myself, to get control. I thought I might be sick. “That’s great that is, Goughie, that’s fucking brilliant. Why don’t you go away before I lose my temper? Now! There’s children.”