White Trash
Page 30
The trip home was quick, a train and then a bus, Ruby locked inside her head the whole way so she didn’t see the streets or people, heard nothing, she was in some sort of shock and handling it best she could, running over the same question again and again, whether Jeffreys had been telling the truth about the murders he’d committed, if it was true that money really was more important than anything else, even a human life.
Was Jeffreys really a social cleanser trained by the authorities? Was the government carrying out euthanasia according to the cost of treatment and a person’s economic worth? If it was true, then she was in big trouble, and had to keep what she knew to herself. She followed this line of thought swinging into a nightmare vision of the world around her, where she was being recorded and evaluated by accountants, something as pure as medicine and public health infected with a deadly strain of cynicism, and then as quickly as she went that way she was snapping back in the other direction, saw Jeffreys as nothing more than a loner, a coward whose snobbery was out of control and meant he killed anyone he didn’t like, whenever he got the chance. He was a control freak, power mad, the scum of the earth.
Walking out of the bus station, Ruby smelt the fumes of the dual carriageway and heard the roar of engines and it made her depressed, her normal joy at just being alive had been distorted, because usually the smell of the petrol was sweet in her nose, the thunder of cars and trucks a display of life, but things were different now, dark and sickening, her mind rocking, reeling, rabid as she was faced with the truth that euthanasia was being practised right across the country, in every hospital social cleansers ready and eager to carry out their orders, to implement policy, they were only carrying out commands and not taking any personal satisfaction from their actions, performing terminations, easing the pain and suffering of the sick and elderly and expensive-to-treat and anyone who took their fancy.
But she had to calm down and think properly, make a plan, fight the doom Jeffreys had created. Everything he’d said was in her head swishing in and out of the nightmare of that video, which was real enough, the stories he’d whispered into her ear, feeling like they’d been caught on film as well, endless reruns playing in her mind. She hated him, hated everything and everyone, felt so alone in the world she wished she was dead.
—Cheer up darling, a man said, as she waited for the lights to change and let her cross the road.
Normally she smiled at everyone, but now she was different, took no notice, her dreams horror shows, like the endless TV documentaries, there was nothing good she could think of, and she was seeing her mum in the hospital and her dad in his grave and she wished they’d had other children, that she had a brother or sister to turn to, they hadn’t been able to have another child, and she thought about going round and seeing Paula, but she had her kids home from school, had enough to worry about, and Ruby thought about Dawn and the others, they’d be at work, Boxer couldn’t handle that sort of thing, and anyway, she didn’t want to go to the hospital, that was the last place she wanted to be right now, maybe she’d never go there again, anything could happen, and most of all she was thinking about Charlie, she hadn’t known him long, but so what, he was special, she needed someone, everybody needed someone, there was no shame in that.
She crossed the road and went in a phone box, called his number, Charlie’s voice right there on the other end in two rings, and it was like she was hearing him coming out of the radio, he was excited and said he’d been phoning her, he wanted to see her, she tried to talk but couldn’t get a word in edgeways, he had a surprise for her, and she gave up, kept quiet, she’d tell him what had happened when he met her in the Brewer’s, in ten minutes.
She only raised her head now to look at the traffic, then down at the pavement, ducking into the pub. It was the middle of the day and there were a few people in, but the Brewer’s was big and there was plenty of space, she couldn’t handle it packed, Ruby sitting by the window with a pint of cider, and she was thirsty, smelt the apples and swished it around her mouth, trying to wash away the sickness, wondering if the police were going to believe her, when she went and told them what had happened, and maybe they’d say she was mad, call a man in a white coat and hold her down as he injected her with special medicine, a magic potion to sedate her until she could be taken to an asylum, and there she’d pass away in her sleep, nobody would check the reasons if the doctor said it was okay, or if she jumped out of a window and broke her neck.
She wanted her mum but couldn’t have her. Mum was nearby but out of reach. It wasn’t fair, it just wasn’t fair, she didn’t understand what she’d done to deserve this, big tears in her eyes, dabbing at them with a tissue.
—Are you all right? the barmaid asked.
Ruby nodded and tried to smile.
—You forgot your change.
Ruby took the money and put the coins on the table, a handful of silver, looked through the window at the street and the shopping centre opposite, all sorts of people flowing into the precinct, and normally she loved this, the colour and noise and vitality, but now there was a fog over everything, all these people were doomed, they would live and die and that was it, there was no reward waiting, nobody was valued, it didn’t matter how hard they tried, all they needed to do was get sick or have an accident and an ambulance would deliver them to the cleansers, civilised assassins armed with hypodermic syringes, full of controlled hatred, rational men leering at their sentimental, crying victims.
—Do you want another one? the barmaid asked, a few minutes later, as she passed by, emptying ashtrays. I’ll bring it over if you want.
She was being kind, but one was enough, even though Ruby was tempted. She’d drunk it fast, watched the woman go back to the bar, then turned to look at the street.
A pink Cadillac made her start. It was right outside the window where she was sitting. It was just like the car Charlie wanted to buy, and it took her a few seconds before she realised that Charlie was sitting behind the steering wheel and waving at her, telling her to come on, and she blinked and stood up, left the pub and got in, it had a huge front seat, a black puppy sitting in the back on a blanket, and she didn’t understand, the dog jumping forward so Charlie picked it up and plopped it in her lap, indicated right and pulled away, the suspension so smooth the Cadillac floated along, and she could see one or two people looking over but didn’t care, and Charlie was talking a mile a minute so she couldn’t get a word in edgeways, he was going into one, telling her how this bloke at the hospital had given him a tip, a horse called Ruby Murray, a 100–1 long shot, an old boy who’d passed away the day before he was admitted had given it to another patient, it was a shame he couldn’t thank him, but anyway, he’d backed the horse and backed a winner, won enough to go and buy the Cadillac, it was his dream come true, and he’d had a bit left over, knew how much she liked the puppy in the pet shop, so he’d bought it for her as a present, there were no strings attached, she didn’t have to marry him or anything, laughing, not yet anyway, and Ruby knew that she was going to call the puppy Ben, he was licking her face and she was hugging him and crying, really crying, so Charlie looked over at her all surprised, and she was happy, told him she was crying because she was happy, Charlie smiling, pleased, and Ruby loved the dog and loved Charlie and was so happy it was almost like she’d died and gone to heaven.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John King is the author of eight novels to date. His first, The Football Factory, was an immediate word-of-mouth success and was subsequently turned into a high-profile film. Headhunters, England Away, Human Punk, White Trash, Skinheads, The Prison House, and The Liberal Politics of Adolf Hitler followed. His stories reflect his cultural interests—particularly music, pubs and youth cultures—while challenging a range of stereotypes that are often accepted by the established political factions. Common themes are powerlessness and enemy-creation, the contradictions found in every walk of life. Before becoming an author King worked at a variety of jobs and spent two years travelling arou
nd the world in the late 1980s. He has long been associated with fanzines, writing for various titles over the years and running Two Sevens in the early 1990s. He publishes and edits Verbal, a fiction-based publication. He is working on an animal-rights story, Slaughterhouse Prayer. He lives in London.
ABOUT PM PRESS
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The Football Factory
John King
ISBN: 978-1-62963-116-5
296 pages
The Football Factory is driven by its two main characters—late-twenties warehouseman Tommy Johnson and retired ex-soldier Bill Farrell. Tommy is angry at his situation in life and those running the country. Outside of work, he is a lively, outspoken character, living for his time with a gang of football hooligans, the excitement of their fights and the comradeship he finds with his friends. He is a violent man, at the same time moral and intelligent.
Bill, meanwhile, is a former Second World War hero who helped liberate a concentration camp and married a survivor. He is a strong, principled character who sees the self-serving political and media classes for what they are. Tommy and Bill have shared feelings, but express their views in different ways. Born at another time, they could have been the other. As the book unfolds both come to their own crossroads and have important decisions to make.
The Football Factory is a book about modern-day pariahs, people reduced to the level of statistics by years of hypocritical, self-serving party politics. It is about the insulted, marginalised, unseen. Graphic and disturbing, at times very funny, The Football Factory is a rush of literary adrenalin.
“Only a phenomenally talented and empathetic writer working from within his own culture can achieve the power and authenticity this book pulses with. Buy, steal or borrow a copy now, because in a short time anyone who hasn’t read it won’t be worth talking to.”
—Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting
“King’s novel is not only an outstanding read, but also an important social document…. This book should be compulsory reading for all those who believe in the existence, or even the attainability, of a classless society.”
—Paul Howard, Sunday Tribune
“Bleak, thought-provoking and brutal, The Football Factory has all the hallmarks of a cult novel.”
—Dominic Bradbury, The Literary Review
Human Punk
John King
ISBN: 978-1-62963-115-8
368 pages
For fifteen-year-old Joe Martin, growing up on the outskirts of West London, the summer of 1977 means punk rock, busy pubs, disco girls, stolen cars, social-club lager, cutthroat Teddy Boys and a job picking cherries with the gypsies. Life is sweet—until he is attacked by a gang of youths and thrown into the Grand Union Canal with his best friend Smiles.
Fast forward to 1988, and Joe is travelling home on the Trans-Siberian Express after three years away, remembering the highs and lows of the intervening years as he comes to terms with tragedy. Fast forward to 2000, and life is sweet once more. Joe is earning a living selling records and fight tickets, playing his favourite 45s as a punk DJ, but when a face from the past steps out of the mist he is forced to relive that night in 1977 and deal with the fallout.
Human Punk is the story of punk, a story of friendship, a story of common bonds and a shared cultured—sticking the boot in, sticking together.
“In its ambition and exuberance, Human Punk is a league ahead of much contemporary English fiction.”
—New Statesman
“The long sentences and paragraphs build up cumulatively, with the sequences describing an end-of-term punch-up and the final canal visit just two virtuoso examples. These passages come close to matching the coiled energy of Hubert Selby’s prose, one of King’s keynote influences ….. In the resolution of the novel’s central, devastating act, there is an almost Shakespearean sense of a brief restoration of balance after the necessary bloodletting.”