First, he takes his hood down, slips off his white plazzie motocross mask. He gulps in the damp air, closing his eyes. The moisture is sharp and sea fresh. He can feel the tingle in his soul already. It’s like a metal brace has been removed from his head. He’s protected from the downpour, fresh in from the Western Approaches, by the high walls, but a few stray drops of rain cool his scalp.
He unzips his Lowies. The shell falls to the ground. Air Max top off. Freedom. His whole body is rushing now. Impatiently, he takes off his Berghaus bottoms, pushing them down with the soles of his trainies, the treads catching on the matt, rubberised lining of his waterproofs. He’s naked now but feeling alive.
He takes a freshly ironed green Lacoste shirt out of the bin-bag he brought with him. It looks new, except for a tiny row of pinhole burns down the front. Over that he puts on a powder-blue Rohan trackie top, space age, with concealed zip and a neat, short funnel neck. His jeans are slightly baggy, with a straight, 16-inch leg. He’s brought a pair of royal blue Adidassler.
The kitchen knife with the serrated edge was down his bollocks. Now he plunges it into the moist, grassy earth. He never brought his gun. The thought of it here makes him sick.
Dylan bombs round the front and inside through the main doors. No one says fuck all. No one looks twice. He looks like any other library-goer – maybe a score-knowing stude from Nantwich or somewhere. He’s buzzing now at being near The Place, his breathing gone a bit skew-whiff. The lobby is warm and quiet, shabby but safe. Years of decline during the ’80s have eroded its original splendour. Students are sat behind ’70s glass partitions, bolted on ad hoc to antique rooms. He goes through the Hornby Library, taking it all in, the beech parquet floor, gilt chairs with red-velvet upholstery. Then into The Place, the Picton Reading Room. His body is electrified now. He feels as if he’s walking into a floodlit stadium. He looks up at the huge dome roof: smooth, creamy alabaster, 100 ft in diameter, 56 ft high, latticed into panels, turquoise architraving with gold detail.
Only The Place feels totally safe. Only there does he feel totally free. It’s too much for him already. He feels drowsy now, weeks of stress falling off him, coming out of him in waves.
He has a quick mooch. No staff around. Spies a gallery high up in the walls, chooses the furthest staircase, a wrought-iron spiral. He carefully places each foot flat on the iron plates, no noise, just like on the graft. Up three flights. Forty foot up now. He steps into a little recess, a small strip of iron floor with a cast-iron radiator pipe belching out heat underneath. Three sides of books on wooden shelves and in glass cabinets. There’s dust on the floor. No one’s been up here for months. He can’t be seen from below. Dylan lies on the floor, switches his mobile off, takes a book about Serbia off the shelf, reads a bit – and crashes.
* * *
Bang! Dylan’s head flies up instinctively then slams back onto the ornate, cast-iron floor of the gallery. Panic. He goes for his thing down his kecks. But no Lowies, no shiv, no heater, nothing down there. He remembers putting the knife in the grass outside, feels the denim on his legs. Where am I?
Then the vision. Medjugorje-style. That beautiful. Too lovely. Her reflection in the brown, wine-bottle glass of an old book cabinet next to his head, the bottle-green of her dress swimming into the reflection, flowing into the green of his Lacoste, blending as one in the glass. He remembers where he is.
He looks up over his shoulder. The girl has a round face, a dot of a nose, freckles and strawberry-blonde hair in long, twisty curls. She’s bending over him, looking down.
‘I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?’
Dylan’s speechless, shamed.
‘Are you all right?’ Little smile.
He’s confused by her beauty, her openness, her loveliness, and angry that she’s found him in this state, like a tramp, crashed in the foetal position, head wrecked by sleep.
She offers a thin, moist hand. Bony arms and alabaster skin. Dylan’s eyes dart around for an outro. He wants to get off but there’s nowhere to run. Forty foot up. His eyes settle on her. A sail of green dress billows away from her chest as she crouches down. Dylan blimps a pale, solid tit shrouded in a pearly satin vest with a delicate, creamy strap. Her eyes collar him, but she doesn’t move. She remains crouched confidently beside him. Dylan, shamed, has a cherry on now.
‘It’s OK,’ she says, seeing that he’s blushing. ‘Nothing to worry about. I never come up here. But I’ve got to put those back.’ She glances at a small stack of old, dark-red books near the top of the spiral staircase.
Dylan’s lost for words, enraged at his own inability to communicate.
‘By the way, the library’s closing in five minutes.’ She gives him a gentle smile, partly because of the mischief of the scenario, partly to calm him down. ‘I wouldn’t want you to get locked inside.’
Dylan is hypnotised by her teeth: the purity of white emulsion, square, healthy. He’s never seen such a lovely grid. Not orange off the tea crawls, not yellow off the green or black off the munchies. Just skirting-board white, every one. He says fuck all.
‘I didn’t want to wake you. You were in such a . . .’ She hesitates to use the word. ‘A beautiful sleep.’ She blushes a bit, strong, wine-red patches flaring up on her creamy cheeks. Dylan looks into her pot-brown eyes. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Most of the doors are shut now . . . and the alarms are on.’
Alarms? What’s she on about? Does she think I was trying to hide from them?
The girl senses his unease. ‘I’ll walk you out, if you want. So you can get out OK. Wouldn’t want you to get lost in here. Locked in of a Friday night.’ She’s firing off smiles.
Dylan springs to his feet. She’s wearing woollen, ribbed navy-blue tights, flat, matt red shoes tied with a ribbon. Downstairs, they cross the parquet floor. Dylan wants to say something to her. But what? Confusion grows in him, then rage. She opens the big oak doors, another set of thick, bevelled frosted glass, smiling at him as he creeps through each time.
Why the fuck is she doing this? She going to get me nicked or what? Dylan’s trying hard not to be suss. He wants to be nice. But he doesn’t know how. He wants to do something for her. Impress her.
Near the main entrance, he sees the security guards waiting to close up and knock off, having a little banter. They stop silent when they see him. Dylan knows their look inside out: sharp eyes, prison-screw smiles, bitter.
Rage wells in Dylan. Should he bang one of them out? Break one of their jaws? Would that impress her? Make up for the lost words? Would she buzz off that? Dylan knows what they’re thinking. How the fuck did he get in here? But mostly they’re jealous and that makes them look down on him even more. Because the bird’s with him, their bird, their librarian, the posh bird who they perv off day in day out. The bird who they desperately try to cop for but never can. Sad twats. They don’t like it one fucking bit.
One of them pipes up, ‘’Ere y’are, love, we’ll take him.’
Don’t be pretending you’re hard, lad, in front of her. Break your fucking jaw, right now.
The girl senses the tension. ‘He’s with me.’ Dylan feels a tiny bit stung off her need to explain, to defend him. She looks at him. ‘I mean . . . I’m showing this guy out. Just a little late from the Picton Library.’
The security guard’s a bit suss. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘He didn’t hear the bell.’
The girl gently touches his arm and starts walking, getting out of their way, guiding him through a switched-off security detector, through the hot-draught door and into the tingly cold.
‘Well, see ya,’ the girl says, watching him go and waving. She wants to say more but Dylan’s silence is starting to dent her confidence. All she says is, ‘I didn’t mind, you know . . . you having a sleep . . . it’s OK.’
CHAPTER 12
GRAFT NIGHT
Dylan’s home by ten. Friday night, graft night. The older ones all go out, all pissed, desperate for charlie, tablets, weed from the younger ones.
Dylan throws his ma his big bag of powder and says to their Will, playing Scarface on the Wii, ‘Go and get me scales, lad. They’re in next door’s back bin.’
Will, ten, fucks him off immediately, zoned out, busy wasting whacked-out Indians at the Sunray Motel.
‘Will, you fucking prick, go and get the fucking scales, lad, before I knock you out.’
Dylan’s ma, screaming, gets the plastic Wii gun and smashes Will across the head. ‘Go and get your brother’s thing, soft lad. He’s got to get his graft on the go if he’s going to make any wages. Ten o’ fucking clock already. They’ll all be heading into town soon.’ Her face lights up in anticipation. She’ll be getting a few quid off Dylan. Plus she’ll snide a few grams off the block as she’s bagging it up for him.
‘How you been, lad?’ she asks Dylan. ‘Haven’t seen you for a week.’
‘Just grafting.’
‘I know. You’re the only cunt who works in this family.’
Dylan’s ma screams at their Michelle, his sister, 14: ‘Make him a fucking cup of tea, will you?’
Dylan follows her into the kitchen. Gives Michelle £200.
‘D’you hear what happened in the ePod last Saturday? Fucking twat Connor started chatting shit to some girl, so I went over, ripped the face off the fucking slag. Guess what he does?’
‘What?’
‘Starts fucking calling me all kinds in the queue for the taxi.’
Just then, they see Connor through the front window. He’s coming out the front gate across the other side of the street. Dylan bails out with a golf club and a kitchen knife. Connor’s on his toes right away. Dylan shouts up the road: ‘Get him!’
A few of the lads by the entry chase after Connor as well, cop for him by the bend. Dylan smashes his head with the golf club. ‘Fucking ever start on our Michelle again . . .’ He stabs his ankle bone with a kitchen knife and walks back to the house.
Michelle’s giggling at the edge of the path: ‘Serves him right, dunnit?’
Back inside, settling down, Dylan points at the bag of powder, and says to his ma, ‘Bag that up into 20 and 40 bags, will you?’
Dylan’s ma’s a wizened smackhead, loves to show off her prowess on the scales. Dylan throws her a small lump wrapped in bright-blue cellophane, tells her, ‘Got you a few Subutex there. Better than that green you get on the script, I’m told,’ he says, referring to her methadone.
‘You’re a lovely lad, getting those for your ma.’ She looks daggers at Will and Michelle for never getting her anything like her favourite son. ‘Knock you out for about eight hours, those. Don’t make you feel sick, though. That fucking methadone, lad, fucking ruthless.’
‘Just stay off the brown will you?’ replies Dylan.
He says to Tommy, his younger brother, ‘Have you had any tea? ’Ere y’are, go the shop.’ He gives him fifteen quid. Ten minutes later, he’s back with the tea: bag of Haribo Yogi-Frutti, bag of Haribo Tangfastics, bag of Haribo Milky Mix for the baby, Haribo Lite for his Michelle. She’s on a diet, she says. Walkers Gary’s Special Lamb Curry Flavour crisps, Quavers, Golden Wonder, Nik Naks. Frazzles, Space Raiders, Wotsits, Dairylea Dunkers Baked Crisps, KP Skips. A massive bar of Galaxy for afters. Michelle gets a few plates out and serves the meal up with a bottle of cream soda. Their younger sister, Stefanie, breaks off from watching the telly. After tea, the kids start going off their heads, banging off the walls. ‘That was lovely,’ says Michelle. ‘First tea we’ve had at home for ages.’
Dylan reads the Echo, a court report about a drug dealer. Making mental notes of the latest police technology so that he can brief the lads. CBeebies is on the telly for the baby. In the Night Garden.
‘Everything OK?’ Dylan asks his ma.
‘Great. Will got statemented this week. Hopefully get him taken out of school this week.’
‘What’s he been up to?’
‘Fucking slashed one of his teachers, didn’t he? So I went up and the head said that they couldn’t control him. They said that he had one the highest IQs in the year but that he was disruptive or something. I told them he’d been on medication since he was eight.’
‘Mad, innit?’
‘He would have been all right but then some student teacher said that Will had put his hand up her skirt. And had been having a wank in front of her. Felt ashamed when the teacher was telling me.’
‘Mad, innit?’ says Dylan, head in the paper, not taking much notice.
‘Should have seen the state of her, though. The teacher. Went up to the school and, I’m telling you, only one word for it: slag. Am I right, Michelle?’
‘Scrubber, Dylan,’ Michelle confirms. ‘Should have seen her. Felt ashamed.’
‘Little short mini on,’ Dylan’s ma goes on, ‘little fucking skimpy top. I said: “She’s asking for it. Imagine wearing that in front of a load of young lads. Lads get crushes on their teachers, don’t they? Not surprised our Will wanted to fucking shag you.”’
Dylan perks up, thinking of the nice student teacher, imagines bending her over the desk. He shouts to Will, who’s now chipping away at the plaster and breezeblocks on the landing wall with a tiny hammer robbed from metalwork, ‘Dirty little cunt, aren’t you? A fucking wank in class? Is she nice?’
Will’s embarrassed. ‘Yeah, all right, like. Wasn’t fucking having a wank, though. Just grabbed her arse while she was on the whiteboard.’
‘Is right,’ says Dylan, getting up and stomping around the room pretending to hold an invisible cock. ‘Have you told her you’ve got an older brother with a fucking big snake. Lash that on her fucking table.’
Dylan’s ma carries on: ‘But the fucking head was having none of it. Said that the young girl had been traumatised. Felt as though she was gonna get raped. Off work and all that. I said to the head, “Fuck off. She’s only after a pay-out and six months off work.”’
Michelle, crashed out on the couch now, adds, ‘I know. Lazy twats aren’t they?’
‘The head said that the teacher had made a statement saying that she’d collared Will wanking over her.’ Their ma looks over at Will and says, ‘Just like your fucking auld feller, you. He was a dirty twat, as well. Caught him shagging that auld one from the pub on that couch. Anyways, I says to the head, “The fucking slag only wants to put in a claim. Go on the sick.” You know what them teachers are like. They’re worse than the fucking bizzies for going on the sick.’
Dylan’s still half-reading the Echo, but has one eye on Granada Reports, watching CCTV footage of a raid on a shop.
Dylan’s ma continues her story. ‘The teacher said Will was having a wank under his desk and when she asked him to stop he wiped a load of stuff on her hair. She said it was come. I said, “Fuck off. The little prick is only ten, he hasn’t even had a wet dream yet. All’s the little cunt does is play on the fucking Wii all day. Wouldn’t know how to play with himself. I know he’s a cheeky little twat, mind you, giving everyone abuse and banging everyone out, but he’s not a fucking rapist, is he?”
‘But the head said, “No. He’s going to have to go on the sex offenders’ register.”
‘I said, “What?” Grabbed the little fucking scrubber, ragged her by the head, threw her on the floor. Bizzies called. Fucking Asbo’d from going to the school again, aren’t I?’
Dylan: ‘Mad, innit?’
* * *
Later that night, the lads are in an alleyway divvying up the gear. Some lads from the park are putting on a show with a robbed Audi. New Loon’s on a robbed Suzuki Kx crosser, winding StreetSafe bugs up, waiting for them to come after him, letting them chase him, then burning them off.
Nogger and Dylan head down to the pub to sell some tablets to the older ones. They go in hoods down, everyone making a fuss of them. They pass the gear under the tables but seconds later the punters are snorting off the tabletops in full view of the bar.
Jay’s in his school uniform still, hasn’t been arsed going home yet. ‘They made me go back to school,’ he
complains to Dylan.
‘Mad, innit? Still getting shit off all those Walton lads?’
‘Fucking right, I am. They pulled an auld .455 on me in double CDT today.’
Nogger hears this. ‘Let’s go and see them now.’ He jumps into a private hire, spins up to the shops in Walton. He jumps out, runs into a pub, machetes the auld feller of one of the Walton gang. ‘Tell your prick to stay away from Jay.’ Chops him on the forearm as he puts his hand up to defend himself.
CHAPTER 13
THE DATE
Dylan’s been waiting for this all week. Every day thinking about her, her carefully teased hair, her loose, solid breasts. It’s a bright winter’s day, sun so strong it makes him smile. It’s even warm when the wind stops blowing for a second.
He lashes all his gear into a black Adidas bag, headed for the South End. He loves going to the Golden Gloves gym. No one knows him there. He feels like it’s his secret. There’s something about the dock areas, about those old sloping streets, that’s less oppressive than The Snow. Fresh air from the river, silver light, freedom.
Downstairs the Gloves is packed with lads. It’s the same as it must have been 50 years ago. There’s loud stomping from the circuit training and army-style shouts off the coaches. Everyone’s charging off the loud house music. Afterwards, Dylan has a strong, hot shower, washes away the cold and the sweat.
He gets the 82C into town. Beige Carharrt cords on, new pair of brown Berghaus mountaineering boots, a £70 T-shirt (grafted off Bold Street, bought off a lad in the bookie’s), a plain, dark-green Peter Storm kagoul.
As soon as he gets to The Place, he’s on her right away. She’s helping an auld feller on a computer in the corner. She’s dressed sleeker and fitter today: dark-blue skinny jeans, right up her arse, tucked into shiny, brown knee-length boots; a tight, white T-shirt and a thick tomato-red cardi with three-quarter-length sleeves, a few holes in it. She leans over the auld feller to touch the keyboard, her tits pressing out against the T-shirt, like low-hanging fruit. She’s laughing with the old guy, patient, not fucking him off. He loves her more for it.
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