No, not here, I say, clearing my throat at the same time. Not the Nook.
Where then?
Around the town. A few places, growing up. But then I moved away.
Where?
Where did I move to?
Aye.
Just around.
What was it like?
What was what like?
Where you moved to.
It was alreet. Depends.
I pause for a moment, then I say: the food was terrible.
She laughs at this. It’s a genuine laugh and it makes her face look different. Like a different person. Her face really comes alive when she laughs and her eyes go all squinty. Her tits wobble an all but I try not to notice them, and I realise that I’ve not been this close to a pair of tits for many years. Probably ever, actually.
The food was terrible, she says, mimicking us. Like food do you?
Some of it I say, wondering what sort of a question that is to ask.
What about drink? I bet you like a good drink don’t you.
As it happens I don’t like to drink. I never touch it. But I’m not going to tell her this either.
I shrug.
I love to get pallatic me, she says. I fucking love getting mortal. There’s nowt else to do is there.
I still say nothing because I don’t know what to say. I’m not used to this. My mind is racing but it’s also completely blank. I want to speak but I’ve got nowt to say. Absolutely fug all. Because I’m not used to talking to lasses like this. Or any lasses at all. Bloody useless twat, I’m thinking. Just talk to her, man. But me mind is blank and all I can think about is them tits. And how my mouth is dry. I’m so busy trying not to panic that I miss what she says to us.
Eh?
I said, do you like knocking about with girls an that?
I feel mesel turning into a plum again. A git big plum. A big plum that’s blank inside. Blank and hollow. A shell of plum. A plum with a dry mouth and nee clue about owt in life.
Some of them, I say. I mean it depends.
Aye, I bet you do you dirty get, she says, but she’s smiling when she says this. There’s no need to be shy about it. All lads like you like lasses. Then as if she’s talking about the same thing she says here, have you got any Soleros?
Aye.
What about an Ice-cream Sandwich. I’m dead hungry, me. Proper got the munchies.
Aye, I think so. I glance into the freezer. Aye, I have.
What about Callipos?
Christ, I’m thinking, make your mind up, though I’m not actually bothered because I’m enjoying just chatting to her, even if she is just listing different varieties of ice lolly and asking daft questions. It’s still a conversation isn’t it. The best I’ve had with a lass in yonks.
I look into the freezer again.
Aye.
Orange?
I’ve only got the Tropical Fruit.
She scowls.
I divvent like them.
Then she scrunches her nose up, thinking. When she does she looks a lot younger. I thought maybe she was about eighteen, but now I’m thinking mebbe she’s about sixteen. It’s hard to tell. I’m crap at guessing how old people are. Especially girls because they always act older than they are. And them tits are misleading an all.
Just give us that 69 then.
99, I say.
Aye.
She smiles as I pull the handle and swirl the ice cream onto the cone.
Do you want a flake?
Aye.
I stick two flakes into the cream then hand if to her.
She takes it from us and slaps 50p on the counter.
Divvent worry about it I say, and push the coin back towards her.
Ta she says, then takes a lick and walks off backwards as I try not to cadge a final look at her tits.
I’m Maria by the way, she says, squinting, her head cocked to one side.
I just stand there.
See you then soldier, she says. Then she turns and gans before I’ve said owt.
When she’s left I realise I’m still stood there with one of my hands raised up by my shoulder in a sort of half-wave. Like a comic book Red Indian or summat. Like a knobber. I climb into the front and when I sit down I see I’ve got a semi-on.
I put the stick in gear and when I have a look in the rear view mirror two of the shirtless lads from the garden wall are walking ower towards the van but I turn on the music and drive off.
*
Barker was right behind Henry Bradley when he stepped out of the van. He stopped to talk to a couple of the men on the way. Money was peeled from rolls, bets laid.
Your Dad walked over to Henry Bradley.
“Now then Unc.”
“Alreet lad,” nodded Bradley. “So you’ve come for your tannin’.”
Mac laughed at this.
“Well, one of us has, Unc.”
As fair play man, Barker stepped forward to lay down the rules. Everyone knew them already: it was a square go, which meant it was a stand up scrap. No biting, gouging, kicking, butting, grappling or kneeing. It was fists and elbows only and they’d fight until one of them called best or couldn’t get up. There was to be no corner men or breaks. No cold compresses, stools to sit on or bottles of water. Just pumping blood and stinking guts. Bone on bone.
“Uncle, you’re a good man so for you and your family’s sake, and them kets you used to give us as a bairn, I’ll gan as easy as I can,” said Mac. “And after I’ve panelled you we’ll shake hands and say no more about it. Agreed?”
Bradley shrugged.
“Good,” said Barker. “Your good name’s at stake so let’s keep it nice and clean and we’ll have nee bother.”
As he said this Bradley stepped up and lamped Mac in the eye. Not on his brow or his cheekbone but the eyeball.
“Howay,” yelled your Uncle Eddie. “That’s not fucken fair.”
The punch forced your Dad to take a step back as his eye took to watering and swelling. It came up like an Autumn dawn mushroom.
He shuffled forward and threw two short arm jabs and the fight was on. One landed in Bradley’s eye and the second split his bottom lip. Mac followed through with an elbow that caught Bradley flush on the cheek, then before he could compose himself moved in and swivelled his hips to send a piledriver into Bradley’s rib cage. He felt something crack. Heard it too.
They all heard it.
They heard the fracturing of a rib and the air whooshing out of Henry Bradley’s mouth in one long animalistic groan, like an accordion being dropped into a horse trough.
Bradley went to butt Mackie but age had slowed him. Your Dad took a side step and threw a left and a right to Bradley’s chin then pulled back his arm and threw another good right straight into the centre of his screwed up mush. Bradley’s nose gave way. His whole face was coming up like a blind cobbler’s thumb. Everything fell silent. There was only the breathing of the two men to be heard. No blood either; just distortion and diagonals.
Henry Bradley turned his shoulder away and gave best. He bent over, wheezing and retching, one hand held over his broken rib. Mac spat on the ground then extended a hand to Bradley, who shook it limply without looking up.
“Well,” said your father. “You’ve all seen it: the better man has won here.”
Some of the men muttered but some of them smiled too. Only a fool would have bet against Mac Wisdom in this fight and there was clearly a couple of fools amongst them.
Mac though – he felt cheated that it had ended so quickly. But that’s your father. When he gets in the fighting he wants to see blood. All that training for a minute’s work-out. Well. It was hardly worth bothering with.
So he stepped back and swung his arms out, loosening up his shoulders and rolling his neck.
“Right, then. Who else wants a slice while I’m here?”
No one stepped forward.
“Come on, you shower. Double or quits with this ton I’ve just won mesel.”
The men scratched their heads and looked at the ground and smoked their cigarettes and glanced at one another with raised eyebrows. But there were no takers.
“What about you Ben Brown? I know you can mix it.”
Ben Brown said nothing.
“Howay, you git big bloody nightshirt. I’ll fight you one-handed if you like.”
The men shook their heads.
Mac picked up his sweater and without putting it on began to back away.
“Let it be known. I’ll fight any man.”
He turned and left. His brother followed. It was not yet eight in the morning.
And that’s how your Dad did start out as a knuckle man.
*
I’m up at one of them farms about six or seven miles out of town. It’s about as far out as the route takes us, up to this little hamlet whose name I divvent even know. It wouldn’t be worth bothering with except Arty telt us that every August the farmer gets a bunch of lads in for the month to help with the baling and the bagging and the picking and three times a week he buys them all ice creams and pop and kets, so it’s always worth a detour.
It’s a big sprawling place down this track in the arse-end of nowhere, full of junk and jumble.
Disused agricultural equipment litters the yard out front. There’s a disc harrow with blunted spikes and once-sharp spiral blades that have rusted in the rain and an auld red chisel plough with its tyres missing. A classic John Dere tractor that looks like it has seen better days and has no front wheels sits hunched nose first into the ground. Over across the other side there’s a couple of barely-standing barns that are more daylight than corrugate and even though it’s barely rained since I got out there’s pools of something murky in the divots across the yard, and there’s a strong smell of pig shite in the air.
I turn the migraine music on to let them know I’m about, light a tab and wait for the ten minutes it usually takes one of the lads to come ower from the fields with a little list of things they’re after.
But today it’s the farmer himsel, a big auld boy called Snowball. He’s got his sleeves rolled up and there’s a collie at his heels.
Now then young Mr Wisdom.
Alreet Mr Snowball.
We always talk like this, the two of us – mister this and mister that. It’s part of our crack.
Aye canny, he says. Canny.
Keeping busy?
Aye. It’s a hot one int it? We’re on our third cycle of baling and it’s only August. What do you think of that?
I don’t think owt about that so I just say, reckon you’ll get another one in then?
Oh aye. I hope so. I hope so.
Thirsty work and that.
Aye, says Snowball. Here – you divvent want a puppy do you?
A dog?
Aye.
Nor, I don’t think so. Why?
Our Molly’s had pups. Eight little buggers. The missus wants rid but we’re having a job shifting them all. Actually, she’d as soon keep them but you can have one if you want.
What are they?
Terriers. Jack Russells. Lovely little things, they are. Proper good ratters an all. They’ve been wormed so they’re good to gan. You can have one for free if you like.
I’m not sure. I’m out working all the time.
They’re good as gold. Here – let us show you them anyway.
Snowball leads us ower to a small stone building that looks like it used to be the outside bogs or summat. We walk in and it takes a moment for me eyes to adjust to the darkness, then I see the pups in a pen. They’re all black and shiny with bits of white patches dotted about and they bounce ower to us, yapping and scratching at the MDF he’s used to wall them in. Snowball’s right, mind. They’re lovely little things. Wide eyed and tiny.
I says to him, What’ll you do if you cannot sell them?
The usual, I suppose.
How do you mean?
You know. Stick em in a bucket.
What for?
Snowball looks at us.
To drown the poor little blighters.
Really?
Aye. Eight terriers’ll take some training otherwise they’ll run riot with me sheep. That’s why they’re called terriers – because they terrorise. You cannot get sentimental. Me sheeps me livelihood.
Can you not set them loose, like?
He shakes his head.
That’d be cruel. They’d not last. And you cannot have feral dogs wandering the country can you?
You’d really drown them though?
Aye, John-John. There’s a couple reserved, but the rest’ll be for the bucket.
I’ll take one then, I find mesel saying without even thinking about it.
They’ll need minding for the first few weeks. Are you sure you can take one John-John?
Yeah, I’ll manage. I’ll bring him out on the van if needs be.
That’s up to you. Pick yersel one out then.
I gan into the pen and the pups scratch and nip at me boots. All but one of them, who’s sat off to one side. He’s the smallest in the litter. A little shadow of a pup with a smudge of white on his breast.
I’ll have him, I say. That one.
The little runt?
Aye.
He’s not as strong as his brothers and sisters, mind.
I’m not bothered, me.
He’ll not be as fierce with vermin.
You never know – he might be.
Aye, well. True. You never know. Depends how he’s raised dunnit.
You’re right there.
What ye ganner call him?
I dinnar.
I reach down and pick him up. He lets out a little strangulated cough.
Reckon I’ll have to call him Coughdrop.
Coughdrop’s a good a name as any, says Snowball.
Coughdrop it is then.
Coughdrop Snowball has a ring to it.
He winks at us.
Coughdrop Wisdom you mean.
Aye, he smiles. That works an all.
I bring him up to me face so that we’re eye to eye. As I do, the dog does a piss. A nervous yellow trickle on my boots.
Hallo little Coughdrop, I say. Hallo mate.
*
In the smoky wood-panelled snug of a pub in town that had stood on the same spot for eight hundred years, Mac did fetch him and his brother a couple more pints.
“That eye’s coming up summat big,” said Eddie. “Mebbe we can get you a steak for it.”
“Bollards to that. I’m not wasting a good steak on that feeble punch. You can get us another drink though.”
They had two more pints each, then moved on down to the student end of town, stopping in The Swan & Three Cygnets, The County, The Half Moon and then finally The Dun Cow, where they started on the whisky.
Evening became night and everything was a blur. Your Dad turned up swaying in the darkness, banging about demanding scran and growling summat about Henry Bradley. There was nee need for him to scratch me ears out with his midnight goings on like that.
I cooked him eggs and fixed him a brew but he must have had the devil in him because when a yolk broke before I served him, he lunged across the table and lamped me square across the cheek. Said The Champ deserved more.
He threw some money down at me feet. Then he curled up and went to sleep.
*
It’s hot all week. Proper sticky and that.
After I’ve dropped the van off, cleaned up, disinfected the pumps and wiped everything down then walked back home I’m banjaxed. Totally knackered.
Coughdrop’s there yapping in the pen I’ve made for him from a couple of palettes leaned over against the kitchen cupboards to make a right good den for him. There’s shit and piss on the newspaper I laid down but he’s pleased to see us.
I open the window, lift him out the pen and clean out the jobbies, put down fresh paper, scran and water for him and then take him through to the living room for a wrestle and a play with the squeaky rubber rat I bought him.
I strip off and sit there billy bollards in me armchair, drinking water and smoking a bine while Coughdrop flips his rat in the air, then settles down to gnaw at it.
Even in full summer, the flat is dark. It’s like they’ve designed it so it’s full of shadows. They do that with cheap houses. At least growing up in caravans you could turn and face the sun wherever it was at. It’s hard to get a breeze blowing through an all. It’s a hot little airless box this place, a bit like prison, but I’m knackered and I’ve been out all day so I just sit there, naked, and a bit hungry but too shagged to do owt about any of it.
It’s noisy too.
The dual carriageway is only a minute’s walk across a footbridge from the flats and there’s car and lorries gannin past all hours, or someone is playing music, or there’s kids shouting outside, or there’s sirens wailing at 3am as the polis chase another twocked car swerving round the estate with its doors open, some short-arsed, pubeless pov behind the wheel.
I feel anxiety stirring in my stomach. It’s this place. It proper does my nut in and the only thing to stop that feeling of unease is to get out and about. The early mornings are the best, when it’s barely light and I take Coughdrop out for a shite and a run around the houses to let off some steam when there’s nee-one about, before I gan off to work.
The sunny afternoons aren’t bad either, driving through the country roads with the wind in me hair, the fields flashing by and the smell of pollen and rapeseed hanging heavy in the air. Nature’s scent.
These are the times that remind us of them few moments from me childhood when things felt good, when the world was me oyster, the fields me theme parks and the woodlands me beautiful green cathedral. Those brief moments when owt seemed possible. When things hadn’t yet entirely gone to shite.
It’s this anxiety that stops us from sleeping at night. There’s nee fresh air and there’s shadows creeping about.
I just lie there knackered but awake, a sheet snaked around me restless legs, smoking tabs and reading books and stroking Little Coughdrop.
And then I’m up with the birds.
And then I’m gone.
*
I woke with a black eye, and a bairn in us belly.
That Wisdom tree had gained another branch.
Your Dad Mac smiled when I telt him the stork had been. It was a smile I’d not seen before and I divvent mind telling you it scared us. It was like a wild dog smiling.
Pig Iron Page 7