Pig Iron

by Benjamin Myers

  Oh, get fugged the lot of you.

  That’s what I want to say.

  Get fugged and shove it up your fudge tunnel while you’re at it.

  That’s what I want to say, but as usual I don’t, because inside was full of mouthy little povs who telt the screws and the social workers and their psychologists to shove it up their scabby scuts, and look where that got them. Neewhere. Divs. I’m not like that. I’m not a dribbler or a drooler; my priority is making sure these probation gadgies put ticks in all the right boxes so they can sleep well at night thinking, yes, what we’re doing is saving lives here and yes, society does work after all and OK, it’s hard work, but it is immensely satisfying to be able to help real people with real problems.

  I can just see Dickhead Del with his beak in a glass of wine at some dinner party: well, we’ve got one lad in at the moment, a gypsy you know, a right little character…

  So I tell them what I know they want to hear and they nod and grunt and give us forms that take hours to fill in, and they only give us five minutes break to drink that crap coffee and smoke a bine in the little courtyard round the side.

  I see a few lads I recognise from inside and they’re talking the same auld shite now as they were then, a lot of nonsense about scams they’ve got gannin on and dodgy deals they’ve been doing, or girls they’ve been shagging and money they’ve been making. They don’t know it but they’re just enjoying a little holiday before being sent back inside, or mebbes up to the big house where it’s a whole other thing if you’re a bit green or pink around the hole as it were. I’m glad to leave them stood there, their mouths opening and closing like goldfish.

  When I’m finally done I gan up to Lidl and get me shopping in. The same stuff I always buy. Tins of chilli and tuna and packets of rice and bread and apples and tea and cereal. Milk and crackers and custard in a packet. Broken biscuits and bog roll.

  Toothpaste.

  Definitely nee ice cream.

  *

  They passed through the villages of Kimblesworth and Plawsworth then dropped down into Sacriston, sped through Witton Gilbert and turned right onto the A691 main road to take them all the way up the Deerness Valley to Consett.

  Where one valley gives way to another and the villages and hamlets that circle the city become fewer and far between, the countryside really opens up. The landscape is a green carpet unrolling on either side of them.

  They drove in silence, Mac lighting his first tab in a fortnight. They passed Langley Park down at the bottom of the valley, then went through the old Roman village of Lanchester and on up to Leadgate, and then to Consett. They skirted the town along Delves Lane and drove down more lanes that took them back out into the country.

  Then suddenly the hedgerows gave way to a gap where a track lead to Buttermilk Lane. It was invisible to all but those who knew it, a closed off little world behind nature’s walls.

  “What a shit hole,” said Mac, though the site was much like the one we were stopping on: a field with a dozen or so trailers and not much else.

  The men were already there, milling about. There were about twelve or fifteen of them, smoking and spitting and talking in clipped whispers suitable for an early morning,

  Your Dad recognised some of them – Minty Green, Ben Brown, Levy Riley and his son Levy Jr. Others were unfamiliar. They were travelling men one an all. Men who had a day’s work ahead of them, or a night’s behind them; men in work overalls and boots and thick jumpers against the slight chill of the morning. Ben Brown was wearing a greasy poacher’s coat, with its deep side pockets for storing chorred rabbits and pheasants in. All of them had the long hair and thick sideburns that were the style of the day. Or the style of five year before that. Only the former safe cracker and now successful haulier Minty Green was well dressed in an expensive wool suit.

  Your Dad and Eddie pulled up. The car coughed, then stalled.

  “Here comes the champ!” said Eddie, leading the way. “Make way for the champ!”

  “Stow it,” said Mackie, though he couldn’t help smiling at the hide of his brother, coming here to this site and announcing their presence. Your Dad had had many a fight, but none of them official enough to warrant a nickname like the champ.

  Mac peeled off his sweater so that he was bare-chested in his trackies and trainers.

  As he did, one of the trailer doors opened and out stepped Henry Bradley. He was wearing a white vest and the same tatty suit trousers he always wore. He had stout work boots on his feet.

  Bradley had a barrel chest and an even bigger belly.

  “Christ, look at the size of his purr,” said Eddie out of the side of his mouth. “He looks like he’d rather eat you than fight you.”

  *

  It’s the hottest day since I got out.

  There’s pure golden sunlight beaming down into all the darkened crannies, and the blue sky looks naked without any clouds covering it up. It’s one of them days where if you just stand still you can hear nowt much except mebbes the odd lawnmower or the faint sound of the motorway traffic. Because it seems like wherever you gan these days you’re always near a bloody motorway.

  I’m wearing me new togs: lightweight combats and a vest with the word BUNDESWEHR written across the front of it. I think mebbe BUNDESWEHR is a beer or summat.

  It’s hot in the van even with the air con blowing a good un and I’m proper sweating when I switch on the overhead music and turn into the Nook.

  As usual there’s loads of kids hanging around. On days like this there’s grubby little grommits everywhere you gleg, but not much money to be made from ices. It never feels right here. The bairns are never laughing and skipping and singing like other kids do. They’re arranged about the place like crows. Hoying things. Smashing things. Hanging off things. Tough adult faces on wee bairns’ bodies.

  I’d skip this hole altogether but Arty would have my balls for baubles if he found out.

  Stick to the route, he says.

  Always the route, he says.

  Even over the Nook the sky is proper beautiful today though, and you can smell the tarmac. It smells good. It’s one of them nice smells from your childhood, like creosote or firelighters or a spent sparkler.

  I drive on round the git big crescent that runs round the edge of the estate then towards the green in the middle. I pull up.

  As usual there’s a few little scrotes about. They’re crowded round summat on the ground. One of them is on a bike with nee seat on it and is perched over an exposed metal spike. He’s leaning forward on his handlebars, watching as one of them bends over and pokes at whatever it is that’s on the ground with a stick.

  The lad’s got a lighter in his other hand. The thing on the ground looks like a ratty old jumper or summat but then one of the kids jumps back and howls and the others all laugh and I see the jumper is in fact a cat that has just run off. It has something tied to its tail. Something long and straight. Its tail is wobbling about like a broken antenna. It looks like mebbes it’s a firework. A rocket.

  The kid who jumped and howled hoys his stick away and picks up half a brick instead, then runs after the cat with the lighter still in his other hand. He doesn’t need it though because now there’s a trail of fizzing sparks shooting from the tail of the cat as it darts under a hedge. All the little charver kids are squealing with excitement. They’re hopping from foot to foot and pushing each other out the way to get to the hedge. Then there’s a hiss and a boom as a shower of pink stars explode from beneath the hedge and the kids jump backwards, their squealing turning to hysterical delight.

  The poor cat’s nowhere to be seen. It’s business as usual on the Nook.

  Across the green, some crappy dance music is pumping loudly out of speakers that are balanced in the downstairs front window. Happy house, they call it – the music, I mean. I divvent know about the actual house. It’s the same headbanger crap the charvers used to play all the time inside. Toytown music, I call it. All bleeps and farts and cartoon voices.


  Joyrider music.

  Wanker music.

  Outside the house there’s a couple of lads sat on the garden wall with their tops off. Two more come from inside and join them. They’re wearing trackie bottoms and jeans with words printed on them. They’re swigging their beer and burning their biffters and looking my way.

  Then the kids are at my hatch all talking at once. There’s five of them. They can’t be older than nine or ten. They’re ugly little gets. Proper mirror breakers.

  Give us an ice cream.

  I’ll pay you next time, says one of them.

  Give us some tack on tick, mister.

  I want a can of pop. Giz a can of pop.

  I hold my palms up.

  You know the rules lads, I say. Nee money, nee kets.

  Just give us an ice cream you tight cunt.

  Money first, I tell them.

  One of them slaps down a 50p bit.

  The others laugh. Their laughter is hollow and as cold as the ice cream machine. There’s bile in that laughter. Nee joy. Just bile and bitterness. They’ve got worse manners than half the lads in prison.

  Without taking me eyes off them I reach for a cone and draw a swirl of ice onto it. You’ve got to watch these little squirts. They’re like them coyotes I saw on this BBC programme; they’ll take on owt if there’s enough of them. Even if it’s a buffalo or summat, they’ll still attack it and overwhelm it. Tear it apart, “increment by increment” the gadgie on the programme said, which I reckoned to mean limb by limb, like. This rabble are just like them. They’ve got the same mentality because they’re always hungry. Safety in numbers and that. Half of them’ll be inside within five years, mark my words.

  Here, says one of the kids to his marrers, crouching down and swinging his arse about. Who’s this?

  Ah dinnar.

  The lad points at me.

  Mr. Whippy having a shit.

  The little coyotes cackle. I stick a flake in the cone and pass it to the lad, but as I do, one of the others grabs it and legs it, then they’re all off, hooting and cackling as they chase him across the green, only five short years away from smack habits and their suppers slid under their cell doors.

  The 50p is gone.

  Way overhead I can see a plane flying, its vapour trail fattening then fading behind it like the tail of a tiny white kite that’s broken free of its strings.

  I reach into the fridge to re-stack some of the lollies that fell over when I went ower a speed bump coming into the estate. Then there’s a voice talking at us.

  Christ. Where’s the war at?

  I turn back to the hatch and there’s a couple of lasses stood there in vests and cut-off jeans, smoking a spliff. At a guess I’d say they’re in their late teens. A year or two younger than me mebbes. One of them’s this proper boiler packed in tight to clothes a couple of sizes too small for her. She looks like one of them Spice Girls after she’s been sucking on a tyre pump. Michelin Spice. There’s little rolls of flab popping out over the top of her shorts, out the side of her bra, rippling under her pits. It reminds us of those bubble-necked frogs in the rainforests.

  She’s got too much make-up on and all, and even I can see that it’s not been put on right because there’s a change in colour on her neck where one layer ends and the rest of her flabby face begins. She’s a right butterball.

  I’ve never understood why lasses have to trowel on so much make-up. It’s like they’re trying to hide from summat all the time, but sooner or later the slap has to come off.

  The other lass is nicer looking though. She’s got this jet black hair pulled back into a pony-tail. There’s a narrowness to her eyes that makes her look a bit oriental but a bit mean an all. Or mebbes she’s just got her hair pulled too tight.

  You can sort of imagine her being proper mental when she’s pissed. But she’s pretty fit at the same time. She’s got nee rolls of flab rippling all over the shop for starters, though from where I’m stood I can see the top of her tits. They’re dead white and though they’re not massive or owt she’s still managed to make them look like they’re on display, like football trophies or summat. Like badges of honour.

  She could be in the Spice Girls on her own merits. I’m not even taking the piss.

  Eh? I say.

  You, the sexy one with the ponytail says. You look like you’re dressed like a bloody soldier or summat.

  They laugh like drains at this. Proper gurglers, the pair of them.

  Hey – are you having a gleg at her tits, says the fat one. He’s looking at your tits, he is.

  They laugh again. Piss off you fat get, I’m thinking. I bet you could make cottage cheese under all them rolls of blubber. But I just blush and say nowt.

  What happened to the other fella, says Ponytail.

  What fella?

  The one who’s usually here.

  Arty?

  The bald fella.

  I don’t know any bald fellas, I say. I’ve just started, me.

  Shame. Kell fancied him.

  No, I never, the fat lass snaps back.

  Aye you did. You said he looked like Bruce Willis. Then to me: Do you have any Slushes.

  I don’t know. What’s a Slush?

  You know: a Slush Puppy and that.

  What’s a Slush Puppy?

  ‘What’s a Slush Puppy?’

  Aye.

  Fucking hell. Have you come from another planet or summat?

  They look at each other, smirking. Near enough I’m thinking, and I feel mesel gannin red. I feel like a plum. A right big tit.

  Ponytail takes a draw on the spliff and then passes it to Butterball who blows smoke in through the hatch. It’s sweet and muddy and sickly, like a slurry run-off that’s gone stagnant. The smell takes us straight back. Back inside. Crap hash. Tack and that.

  Nor, I say a little too defensively.

  Alright, keep your wig on, she says. I thought everyone knew what a Slush was.

  Well I don’t.

  It’s made from crushed up ice she says, more breezily this time, as if she’s letting us know that even though she’s taking the piss she’s only trying to be friendly. That’s what people are like round here. They take the piss out of you if they like you. And if they don’t, they take the piss as well. It’s bloody confusing. Travellers don’t do that. Travellers’ll just blank you if they think you’re a knob.

  You can get pina colada or grape or raspberry ones. They turn your tongue blue, she gans. I never understand how a raspberry could be blue.

  They do a coconut one an all, says the fat lass. Then she leans back to look round the van, across the green to where the lads with the music are sat on the garden wall.

  Piss off she shouts, and gives them the finger.

  They sound minging, I say.

  Na, they’re dead nice, says Ponytail. I can’t believe you’ve never had one.

  Mebbes I have, I say. I’m not going to tell this lass that they don’t give you Slushy whatsits when you’re locked up.

  Everyone’s had a Slush, she says vaguely, already losing interest. Then mumbling to herself, like she’s drifting away and already thinking about summat else, she says, they come out of a machine and that.

  Sorry.

  Oh. Well you should sell them. You’d make more money. Specially on a hot day like this, innit Kelly.

  Eh, her mate says while doing a wanker sign to the lads.

  Do you want some of this?

  Ponytail waves the biffter in front of us. It trails silky blue smoke into the van. The smell of prison.

  No ta.

  Mebbes you can give us a 69 then.

  Butterball turns back to us and laughs when she hears this and I feel like saying summat about her dodgy make-up and her ripples of flesh because I know they’re taking the piss but I keep quiet and anyroad, Ponytail keeps a straight face so maybe she’s not. Maybe she’s just being friendly. A smile means nowt these days and like I said, it’s hard to tell if people want to be your mar
rer, suck your bell-end or stove your head in.

  Aye, says Kell. And can you stick a nice big flake in it.

  I’d be hard pushed to find the hole in you is what I want to say to this worky ticket, but I button it. I stick me head out and look up and down the road. Then at the sky. Anywhere but them nice white tits.

  Then there’s a bleep and Kell pulls one of them mobile phones from her pocket and answers it by going yeah? – no hello or Butterball speaking or nothing, mind – then wanders off towards the boys. I can see her white thighs rubbing together. It must be hot down there. Sore. Chafed to all buggery, probably. And the stink...

  I reach for a cone. One of the single ones.

  Do you mean a 99?

  Aye mebbes, she says. Give us an eighth of tack an all.

  Sorry. I’ve not got any tack.

  Nee tack?

  No.

  How come?

  I don’t know. Just don’t.

  Fuck. I’m nearly out.

  Soz.

  The other lad gives us it on tick an all. Cos of Kyle and that.

  She draws on the spliff. It’s nearly down to the roach now. It’s turning brown. It crackles. I don’t know what she’s on about.

  She offers it to us. I shake me head again and try not to gleg at her tits. She says nothing. Neither of us say owt. Then I clear me throat.

  Do you still want this ice cream then?

  Mebbe.

  I just stand there like a plum with a cone in my hand, not sure what to do.

  Have you not got any skunk or owt, she says.

  Nor. Nee skunk neither.

  ‘Kin ell. Have you got anything illegal?

  I have to think about this.

  Nor, I say. I don’t think so. Not unless Cider Quenches or Twisters are against the law these days.

  Well you’re nee bloody fun are you, she smiles. What’s the point in an ice cream man who only sells ice creams?

  I say nowt to this.

  You’re properly missing out, she says then: you don’t say much do you?

  I shrug.

  Sometimes. I mean – not always.

  She drops the roach on the ground, grinds it out, then leans on the hatch counter, looking in.

  Do you come from round here? She says this without looking at us. Only cos I don’t recognise you.