White Trash

by John King

  Ruby ran a finger over the length of his scar, very slowly, turning him to mush so he blushed and turned his head away from his mates who were rocking back on their heels, the same age but moving with the times, shaved heads and Stone Island, arms folded, Ruby’d heard about them when he was in hospital, this lot drank, trained and worked together, been a team for years and made good money. She tried to remember their names, only knew Terry. He’d told her he was going to do the men who glassed him, they were as good as dead, and she’d done her best to calm him down, what good did it do hurting people like that, she was the one who had to clean up the mess, and he nodded but she guessed he’d do it all the same, understood that it was as much about his self-respect as revenge, then convinced herself he’d take some notice of what she said.

  When you saw someone in a hospital bed, worried about what was going to happen to them, if they’d end up maimed or dead, they went back to being a child. The hardest hard man crumbled once you gave him a bed-bath. They relied on you same as they used to rely on their mums, and you developed a special bond. Their mums were never impressed with them acting up once they’d cleaned their bums as babies. That’s how it was with Terry. She had his number, loved the collar and yellow hair dye, a seventies face raised on glam rock, the cheesy sounds of Mud and Hot Chocolate.

  —Is she with you? he asked, looking at Paula in the background, the other bouncers staring at her bum and licking their lips.

  —These two as well. We’re all together. He gave the boys a different sort of look.

  —Go on then.

  —What about us, someone asked at the head of the queue, too pissed to keep quiet.

  —Fuck off, mush, he said, leaning forward.

  Ruby saw Terry knocked out and bleeding, the twins after Bobby had finished with them, hoped nothing like that ever happened to Pinky and Perky, smiling at the nicknames, never using it in front of people. They’d given Terry an injection and stitched him up, and next day he was semi-conscious, couldn’t get out of bed and didn’t know where he was, going on about being an engine driver when he grew up, like Casey Jones, and she held his willy for the bottle, helped him with something bigger. She smiled now, looking deep into his eyes, and it was like he could see what she was thinking and went purple, a big man like Boxer, except Boxer didn’t have the same pressure and could live a different sort of life. She felt sorry for all of them, everyone in the world, didn’t blame anyone for anything, at the same time feeling good about life, knew there were jagged edges but that they just made it better, added flavour, made all the good things stand out.

  She couldn’t stop herself reaching up and kissing him thank you on the side of his head, right on the scar, smelling his aftershave, she wanted to run her tongue along the skin and make everything better, all the people with scars on their faces and in their minds, but she didn’t, followed the others over and paid her money, then went inside.

  She stood with Paula as Pinky and Perky went to the bar, feeling ripples off the music and hearing the fizz of smoke, warm air churning in her ears, this happiness she felt when she was out with her friends, no cares in the world, as if she’d earned the right to enjoy herself, to do anything she wanted, she’d contributed something to the world with all those hours of tender-loving care, coaxing people back to health, fetching and carrying, a shoulder to lean on when times were tough, and now it was payback time, if anyone deserved a laugh it was her and Dawn and Sally and Davinda and Boxer and Maureen and all the rest of them, and she laughed thinking about their Christmas party and how Boxer got drunk and Dawn took advantage, she was sex mad that girl, Boxer wasn’t used to drinking, pissed on a couple of cans, Dawn taking him into the Ladies’ where they made love in one of the cubicles, Ruby didn’t know what had happened till the next day when Dawn told her, and Dawn was laying it on, maybe feeling bad but not about to admit it, said nobody did it better than a dummy, and it wasn’t a nice thing to say but it was like that sometimes when you were dealing with amputations and cancer of the colon and brain tumours and heart disease, a way round it was this humour that made fun of everything, like nothing was sacred any more, that was the way Dawn was, drunk like Boxer, she loved him the same as the rest of the nurses, and Dawn called him a dummy because of this wanker they’d had in once, a moaner and a groaner who didn’t like the food and didn’t like the Paddies and didn’t like the Pakis and didn’t like the poofs caring for him, didn’t like anything or anyone, and Ruby had tried her best, reckoned he just didn’t like life, started fresh every time she spoke to him, but when he called Boxer a dummy that was it, because Maureen and Davinda and Clive could handle it, but not Boxer, and once Boxer had left she’d gone in and slapped the patient’s face as hard as she could, told him what she thought of him in front of everyone.

  He reported her as well. She got in trouble, Maureen saving her job by telling a white lie about him swinging first, and Dawn saw to him, a massive dose of laxative that had him on the toilet for a week. She wished Dawn was with them, that they could all be together right now, and the funny thing was that Boxer was more concerned about hurting Dawn’s feelings after the party, said he preferred her teaching him to read and write.

  —Mind out, Don said, slipping on the floor, almost going over.

  Ruby saw the people around her, fit and healthy and not realising how lucky they were, the excitement stretching from one end of the room to the other.

  —It was murder getting served, Des said, handing her a bottle.

  A man in a Ben Sherman got up on a table and started doing a striptease, undoing one button at a time with exaggerated movements, flicking his wrists and tempting the ladies as his mates chanted WHO ATE ALL THE PIES, stretching his arms back and pulling the shirt off, twirling it around his head seductively and lobbing it into the crowd, to one of his mates really, a chorus of YOU FAT BASTARD, YOU FAT BASTARD directed at his shimmering gut, the blubber blue in the light, and he was happy taking the piss out of himself, saying look boys and girls I’m a big fat bubba who needs to lose six stone otherwise one day my heart is going to explode, and I smoke too many fags and drink more in a day than I should do in a week, I eat a greasy breakfast every morning of my life and chips and batter at night, and my face is battered and bruised and I’ll never walk down the catwalk with the anorexics, but the thing is, I don’t fucking care, just don’t give a toss, I’m too busy living to waste time worrying and waiting for a miracle pill that’ll mean I can last till a hundred, why waste the best years of your life planning ahead, and Ruby could see that two of the bouncers were on their way, the belly dancer knocking over a table full of glasses, and he was undoing his flies, pulling his jeans down an inch, back up, down two inches, back up, down three inches, finally they were around his ankles and he was showing off a pair of Union Jack shorts, and he wasn’t finished, was going for the full monty, didn’t want to let the girls down, but he was having trouble getting his jeans over his shoes, hopping up on to one foot and swaying for a second as the table tilted and sent him crashing forward where his fall was broken by his mates, and he still ended up on the floor, another table going as the bouncers arrived, Terry first, on the dance floor where he belonged, shaping up, and it wasn’t necessary, they were only having a laugh, and the bouncers were having a word and shaking hands, everyone knew each other, and it was calm and sweet and happy and she watched this guy who moved so easy as he danced you’d never guess he was carrying all those bones inside him, that there was thousands of miles of nerves threading through gallons of water, you had to keep drinking, you didn’t want to get dehydrated, and she was watching the lava bubbling in Perky’s pint, people coming and saying hello, some she knew and others she didn’t, their lips moving silently, and she danced like she always danced, felt happy like she always felt happy, the music nice and smooth with no surprises, she just loved dancing, didn’t want to think, what was real was what she could see and touch and hear, and she loved this place because they did visuals with the music, some
one had raided the Cartoon Channel with a VCR, and this meant she could dance with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, cheer as Top Cat dodged Officer Dibble, with Popeye on the door flexing his muscles, and best of all she could hug Pinky and Perky and feel glad they were in a different league and weren’t being chased by the big bad wolf who’d huff and puff and blow their house down, and the lights were popping, extending things she saw every day, and when you worked with bodies you could go two ways, she’d seen how some student nurses couldn’t cope and gave up, but she’d taken straight to it, for her it was the biggest miracle going seeing how the body worked, how complex it was, from the brain and heart to something like a fingernail regenerating after it had been chewed off, the way the blood flowed and was pumped by this muscle that had become a symbol for the soul, she liked that, cynics said it was just an organ, part of a machine that would rust and fail, but to her it was magic, part of what you were, your feelings came out in the way you looked and moved, and she did her work and went home, had her tea and went out again, maybe she was selfish feeling good about herself, thinking she made a difference, but she believed it, not in a grand way like she was important, she wasn’t, she was one of the little people, but it was good being ordinary, she didn’t want to be famous, that was another world, she got on with what was right here, right now, it was how she was, part of her genetic make-up, laughing, genetic fingerprints, laughing, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble grinning, the arm of a record player lifted and the beak of a prehistoric bird lowered on to a slate record, Fred and Barney had a laugh the same as Pinky and Perky and Scooby Doo, she loved The Flintstones, wanted to live in Bedrock, have children like Bam Bam and Pebbles, talk to Wilma and Betty and lift rocks with dinosaurs instead of cranes, it was a dream town all right, Bedrock was where the men were manly and the women glamorous, and Fred and Barney were arguing on the screen, like they did, you only argued with the ones you loved, and then it was smoothed over, and they were going out for a late-night burger at a drive-in, the night had flashed past in seconds, cartoon time, and Ruby couldn’t believe it, she was in the cartoon and saying goodbye to the nightclub staff—to the bouncers on the door—a glitzy affair built into solid rock so it would last for ever—breeze blocks and quality speakers—getting into Fred’s car—Des’s car—his trotters never got tired—Des was starving—and they were all four of them packed in now—Fred, Barney, Wilma, Betty—Des, Don, Ruby, Paula—the cartoon cutting off as they drove through English streets, finally parking up and going into the takeaway on the roundabout for something to eat, served quickly and back out into the car, all of them starving now like Des.

  Ruby and Paula balanced the foam plates on their knees, spilling beans and rice, the blow was calming her down now, the twins in the front digging into kebabs, Ruby counting her beans, red and green jelly babies, losing track and going back to the beginning when she reached twenty-three. She shifted the rice around with a fork, thinking of her mum a million years ago sitting at a table showing her how to hold her knife and fork properly, like a big girl, and when you were little you wanted to be all grown up and adult and then when you were all grown up and adult you wished you could be small again.

  The radio played quietly and Don tuned into a police frequency, the voice of an excited man saying that the raid had been a success. Three men were in custody. Hundreds of pills had been confiscated. Crack cocaine had also been found. It was time to put the kettle on and break out the biscuits. They’d soon be back at the station. Better call a doctor as well. One of the prisoners had a head wound. Another voice cut in and asked if he needed hospital attention. The first voice saying no. Crackle blanking the rest of the message.

  Don flicked through again, German voices, then French, announcing an accordion, and he moved on, through a sitar, ragga vocals, garage, an Arabic song that sounded like a prayer, and finally the sound of a choir cutting out and a preacher launching into a sermon about sin and retribution and the power of the Lord that was truly awesome to behold.

  He would soon unleash His wrath upon the world, the lesson dealt to Sodom and Gomorrah would be repeated on a far greater scale, the ice caps would melt and floods devour the wretched, the four of them stopping to listen as specks of rain hit the car, they rolled their windows up and Ruby saw this short fat man in a sweat-stained suit tap-dancing down the aisle lost in the sheer bliss of revelation, feet moving fast as his trunk stayed still, like a more righteous Barney Rubble, water pouring off his skull, and he was talking about fire and brimstone and eternal damnation, only by turning their backs on the sins of the flesh could they enjoy His reward of everlasting life, because the Earth was a battleground for the fight between Good and Evil, and demons were lurking in the dark recesses waiting to strike, God had made man in His own image and expected him to do His work, and Ruby snapped out of it and thought of Terry guarding the Pearly Gates, St Peter at the bar selling whizz, trips, charlie, E, and she understood that this was the sort of sermon that could go either way, turn really vicious and dark when they were open to suggestion like this, Don reading her thoughts and changing the station, sticking with a country and western song.

  —Thanks, she said, and Don knew exactly what she meant.

  When they finished eating Des drove Paula home, Ruby going in with her. It was three o’clock and Paula went to check the kids, her mum babysitting, asleep in Paula’s bed. She came back down with a blanket and went into the kitchen for a can of Coke, shared it with Ruby in silence, then went back up. Ruby turned the light off and rolled over, lay there for ages unwinding things, cartoons stuck in her mind, finally falling asleep.

  Mr Jeffreys was a romantic, but level-headed enough to understand the nature of hardship. Not from personal experience of course, but through a profound sense of empathy. He felt that this awareness was more genuine. A man of means was not expected to fight for the welfare of those less fortunate than himself, yet this was the path he had chosen. Public service was more important to him than the pursuit of wealth.

  A factory worker or clerk joined a trades union and struck for higher wages and less hours while the self-employed evaded taxation and cheated the system. No matter the consequences to society. Trades unionism smacked of jealousy. The politics of envy a curse on the national interest. He knew that for the majority life was a struggle, but sacrifices had to be made. It was natural for people to try to better themselves. This he accepted, however insignificant their victories when compared to the victories of heroes. While he wished humanity could be free from suffering, he was a realist. Struggle was the way of the world. Natural selection a basic law. It was a cliché, but true, that life was not fair. No number of revolutions would ever change this fact. There would always be leaders and there would always be those who were grateful to be led. Without educated men being prepared to make sacrifices civilisation would crumble.

  This same inevitability applied to life itself. Which without exception ended in death. He now understood that death conditioned life. What was harder to accept were the diseases than plagued humanity. He was not unique in feeling this way of course, but felt it more strongly than most. The decay of the body and mind depressed him. The way in which people passed through life blindly helping themselves to God’s rich bounty was shameful. Too few stopped to consider their fellow travellers. Wasted their energy on trivial matters while the broader picture was ignored.

  Despite being raised as a Christian, and one who had studied the Bible and attended church during his youth, he could not help but question a God who allowed a disease such as cancer to kill small children. A creator who watched as men and women who had worked hard all their lives were ravaged by senile dementia in their retirement years. They had nothing to show for their prudence. Their descendants ran riot. Drinking and taking drugs. Laughing when there was nothing to laugh about. Where was the justice when a selfless man ended up in heaven with a selfish brute, both enjoying everlasting bliss? This unfairness left the bitterest of tastes.

  He clicke
d his mouse and conjured up a list of cases arriving in Accident & Emergency over the last year. Those needing instant attention and those able to wait. He pictured the waiting room. A grim affair with a children’s playpen and various second-hand toys. A flickering television set that pumped out soap-opera inanities. Red plastic chairs and the general grime of a railway station. People dropped their sweet wrappers on the floor and spent cigarettes on the pavement outside, too stupid to realise that the build-up of rubbish had a negative effect on doctors and patients alike. That somebody had to be employed to clean up the mess. A small point. Perhaps he was being pedantic, yet felt this reflected the general lack of respect shown by far too many people. He felt such frustration at this basic lack of cooperation.

  But never mind. He began working his way through the list. An elderly woman with breathing problems. A sprained foot. A car accident. A small boy who had swallowed bleach. Pneumonia. A severe headache. A pub fight. Burns from a spilt saucepan of boiling water. A heart attack. Throughout, Mr Jeffreys cross-referenced the time and nature of the admission, building a pattern. Seeing what could be avoided and what could not. This absorbed his attention for the next hour. Until he saved the document and leant back in his chair, giving his eyes a break from the screen. He was in a good mood.

  Mr Jeffreys preferred to work at night, when the hospital was at rest and the corridors empty. His office was centrally located yet quiet. Removed from the main thoroughfares. But once outside it was a very different story. It was difficult to move freely. Staff were busy and he did not want to be in their way. He spent one day each week in the hospital, to remain in touch, but found he achieved far more at night. He was able to think clearly and his conversations with staff proved fruitful. People were less busy and far more relaxed. Welcomed him rather than tolerated his presence. His job involved the collection of first-hand information and opinion. It was essential that he listen before acting. The night nurses were dedicated and astute. He respected their observations. Theirs was a tough job. He found them more than happy to talk. It was not all work either. They conversed in a friendly way, about generalities. He was comfortable with the staff and believed the feeling was mutual. He never interfered, of course. He watched. Listened. Learned.