One’s enough, ta.
We gan on like this for a while, laughing and messing about, and me ganning Cha-cha-cha and her ganning La Vida Loca! and pissing oursels, and it feels so good driving down the lanes that I stray from the route and I don’t even care. I take us down roads I’ve never driven before and think to mesel that this just might be the happiest I’ve ever felt in me whole stupid life.
As we drive on a back road that takes us to the peak of a hill I’ve never seen before, the whole of the north-east opens up in front of us. It’s a new view to me and it’s so breathtaking and unexpected that I pull over sharply into this little lay-by that’s full of pot-holes but has a view that’s pure nectar.
Inland to the west you can make out the industrial estates then, past them, a bit of space then the city and the spires of the cathedral poking up from its sunken position in the ground, all mystical and ancient, like. To the north there’s Penshaw monument up on a hill, a mini Greek whatsit – aye, temple – and past that you can see all the way to Team Valley and Gateshead and somewhere in the distance beyond them a smudge of Newcastle; looking east there’s nowt much to see because there’s more hills and undulations rising up to the skyline but I know that the North Sea is out there somewhere, a grey swash about ten mile away, but to the south it’s greener and more rural-looking except for a haze in the very distance which I reckon to be the huffing, stinking power stations of Teesside. I’ve never been down to Teesside before. Or up the Toon, come to think of it. It’s a bit ridiculous. I mean, who’s ever heard of a traveller who’s never bloody travelled?
Hell, Maria murmurs. You can see for miles. How come it looks so beautiful from up here but is so fucking ugly down there?
Not all of it is ugly. In fact, most of it’s beautiful.
Not where I live, it isn’t.
I say nowt.
Maria has climbed ower the front seat and is squeezed next to us in a seat that’s not made for two. I can feel her bare arm against mine. There’s a prickle, a hot tingle between us, and I’m wondering if she can feel it too. Even when her arm moves away from mine I can still feel it, like there’s pins or wires or summat connecting us.
Do you reckon that’s it ower there she says, pointing back towards the town where you can see what looks like an over-sized pylon painted blue but which is actually part of some industrial power planet.
What?
The Nook.
Aye, probably. I reckon.
Show us where you grew up, she says.
The van is pointing out across the land and we’re looking through the windscreen at the north-east of England, the only place we know.
Though it’s raining ower the town if you look further north, up towards Newcastle, the clouds are spread so thin they fade away to nowt but pure blue, and the light is shining down in magical looking shafts. Heavenly almost. And there’s that smell in the air an all. That special smell; the scent of wet roads and dandelions and warm gravel; ragwort and mulch.
I get a whiff of Maria too. Her shampoo. And her skin. It’s salty, like. Fusty. A nice fusty though.
As it happens my sense of smell is very sharp. After five years indoors me nose only ever seemed to experience the same odours but now I’m out it’s like I’m experiencing some scents for the first time. I have a very finely tuned sneck.
I’ve definitely not smelled a girl this close up before either. It’s a proper headrush.
I clear me throat and then I point vaguely to the countryside a couple of miles outside of the city.
Ower there, I say.
Then I slowly move my finger across to beyond the other side of the city where things open out again.
There.
I point south.
And there.
I point to the space this side of Chester-le-Street.
A month there.
I point south.
A month or two there.
Then I point back towards the city and keep going. She follows my finger as I arc round way past the city and point off into the hazy distance towards where I think Deerbolt might be, beyond the skyline ower Barnard Castle way.
And five years there, with good behaviour.
Maria smiles but she looks a bit confused.
You’ve lived in a lot of houses.
I don’t say owt at first, like always when people quiz us about me past and me family and that but then summat comes ower us and I think fug it, you have to open up some time, to someone.
Not houses, I say.
Not houses? What then?
Caravans.
Caravans? Here, are you a –
I interrupt her to save the embarrassment of saying the wrong thing. To save us both.
Aye. Me family were travellers.
She goes quiet for a moment.
Is that the same thing as a gypsy?
More or less.
And is that the same as a pikey?
Even though I’ve had the word spat in me mush a thousand times by a thousand horrible dirty mouths, and each time it’s like a slap in the face or a knee in the nadgers, the way she says it so innocently and inquisitively I can’t help but smile this time. This one time. Because Maria’s so sweet she makes an insult sound like a kiss. It rolls off her tongue like honey. The way she says it so timidly I actually feel like laughing.
Well, pikey’s an insult to travellers, I say. A pikey is someone who chors stuff and never washes their bollocks and does fug-all for a living. A pikey is them that dumps broken fridges by the road-side. Pikeys don’t work like I work. Really a pikey’s not a traveller at all; he’s a figment of you lot’s imaginations.
And do you wash your bollocks?
Oh aye, I grin. Twice daily. Soap and water, then talc and a nice perfume.
She smiles at us again, then reaches for my baccy pouch to knock up a rollie. When she’s done it she sparks it up, inhales and slowly blows out a perfect smoke ring.
Cool. I’ve never met a traveller before. Not a proper one. Only pikeys.
She grins again, then she puts her hand on my knee. It’s dead casual, but my knee nearly explodes. That’s what it feels like anyroad. There’s fire in me knee and it’s running right up me thigh and into me un-perfumed knackers.
I pretend not to notice but I feel mesel gannin red again and burning up with blazing embarrassment.
So where’s your family at now then? she asks us, but I barely even hear her say this because her hand is moving up my leg and it’s making us dizzy. Then it’s up on me thigh. Oh Jesus. Now my junk’s stirring underneath me combats, and in a minute she’s probably going to notice it and she’s going to think I’m a weirdo who can’t control his dander or – worse – see us for the virgin I am, and then it’ll all be ower.
Er.
I’m stammering. Stalling. Fog-headed.
They’re off somewhere, I croak. Fug knows.
You don’t know where?
They’re travelling and that, you know. That’s how it is with us.
She actually believes this and I sort of feel bad even though I’m not really lying. I could just tell her the truth: that me Dad’s in the ground and the rest of them are a bunch of bloody bastards that have rejected us, how me Mam took off somewhere and cast us out like a whatsit, and so much for bloody family ties. Thinking about all that again makes us feel sick. So we just sit there like that for a moment, her smoking with one hand and the other resting on my thigh, and me with my dander pulsing. Me face plum red like, and me bell-end lit up like a bloody lighthouse.
Maria breaks the silence.
Here – how come you say fug instead of fuck?
Eh?
It’s weird though isn’t it.
I don’t know. Aye, mebbes.
It sounds daft. It’s not proper swearing.
Nor, I say. I suppose not. I’m not a big fan of swearing.
How come?
I dinnar. I suppose I’ve just heard that much of it over the years. It’s vulgar isn’t
it.
Vulgar! Christ. Whoever met a lad who worries about being vulgar? You’re a proper oddball, you are John-John. Proper confusing.
As she says this she gives me leg a squeeze and me dander jumps in me kecks so hard I reckon she can’t fail to have noticed it. I’m tingling all ower an all, like there’s electricity in the van. Fug, I’m thinking, me cock’s going to explode in a minute. It’s ganna gan off in me kecks like a Roman fugging candle. Good job we’ve pulled ower or I’d probably have crashed by now, and the pair of us would be a mess of ice cream, flakes and nearly two decades worth of sploodge.
I touch the glass eye in me pocket. Me knob’s pressed up against it now. It’s been with us everywhere that thing. Even up me scut for safe keeping, though that’s not an experience I’d like to go through again. It was like summat off a horror fillum getting that thing out.
What ye doing down there, she goes. Having a wank or summat.
Nor, I go. It’s not that.
Well, what’s in there that’s so interesting?
I wrap me fingers round the eye.
Are you sure you want to see it?
Aye, well I do now you’ve got us so curious, John-John.
Close your eyes and put out your hand. She does. She lets out a nervous little giggle.
There you go. She opens her eyes then flinches.
Urr – that’s minging. What is it?
What do you reckon it is. It’s a bloody glass eye, isn’t it.
Where did you get it?
I shrug.
Around. Then I laugh. Do you get it, I go. A round.
You’re mental, you are.
We sit for a bit more and she looks at the eye then she goes so you said you lived ower there for five years, and nods in the direction of the city. Does that mean you stopped in the same place all that time?
Shite. Here we go.
Aye, I say.
Was that in a caravan an all?
Not quite.
A house?
I could just lie. I could just lie and say aye and then we can move onto to whatever comes next. Probably me junk exploding in me kecks, at this rate.
I can almost hear the cogs and wheels of her mind whirring as she tries to work us out: he didn’t live in a house and he didn’t live in a caravan so he was either homeless or he was somewhere else. And he did mention summat about time off for good behaviour…
She’s a bright lass though because she works it out soon enough.
Have you been inside then, she finally says like it’s nowt, and as she does I feel a sense of relief wash ower us and I even stop worrying about me untouched cock shooting spaff all over the shop.
I turn to Maria and we’re facing each other now, dead close, and I’m looking into her exotic eyes that seem sharpened by the tightness of her ponytail and for a moment it’s like we’re looking right inside each other, properly inside each other, to the core, and it feels like mebbes we don’t even need to talk, and it’s a bit like all that shite you see in films – but better, and with La Vida Loca ringing in our ears rather than some slushy cobblers on a tinkling pianner.
Aye I say, my voice all hoarse. Aye, I have actually.
And then we’re kissing, proper snogging like, and her lips are dead soft and wet, and she’s the first girl I’ve ever kissed and one of her tits is pressed up against us, and she tastes of smoke and white chocolate Magnum and it feels mint, top drawer, and me dander is twitching like a mouse in a trap, and it’s all so mental and new and alien that I want to swallow her up and keep her inside us where it’s warm and safe and quiet and she’ll not have to worry about owt ever again, and I’ll carry her everywhere, and we’ll always be together, and she’ll just sit there inside, warm and safe and happy as Larry, with me feeding her Magnums and singing cha-cha-cha, living la vida loca, over and over. Proper dopper, that.
Her tongue’s working overtime in me mouth, then she pulls back and looks at us for a moment and her dark eyes are wild like those of a tiger or summat. Squinting and hungry and on fire. Dead serious, like she’s searching for something in my eye. Then she pulls back and draws on her tab.
That was nice.
Aye, I say, my voice breaking like I’m thirteen again.
She looks at us all wild still, then she sort of licks her lips.
I start to say summat, summat stupid probably, but before I can she flicks the butt out of the window, leans ower and moves her head down to my crotch, to me stiff dander, and I close me eyes and exhale to stop mesel exploding into a thousand little pieces of me.
*
Barker Lovell pulled up on the site a few days later.
He was dressed up the old travelling way, like how you see in the books or in them photos your Gran kept in a biscuit tin under her bed. He had on trousers held up high by braces, a beige check shirt, brown cardigan and matching trilby, with a red silk scarf knotted around his neck to give him a flash of colour. And he had the narrowed eyes of a man who had spent years squinting into the sunlight.
There was six vans on the Edenside site that day and Barker knew travellers in each one of them. But it was your Dad that he was here to see.
He knocked on the door. Mac answered in his shirt sleeves and invited him in for a brew,
“Social visit is it?” asked Mac.
“Not entirely. I’ve got us a bit of work coming up.”
Their conversation was a series of nonchalant sniffs and grunts and statements. Swollen pauses hung between them. I mashed the tea.
“I knew you’d muller Henry Bradley, but I needed to be sure. It was a test, like. I knew you wouldn’t bottle it but I needed to see if you’d put the work in.”
Barker took out his cigarette case and lighter. He made a great show of laying the polished pewter case and matching zippo lighter on the table before him; made sure we both noticed. He would have known we were still using matches. I decided there and then I didn’t like this Lovell one.
“Go on.”
“Everyone in town knows you’re a brawler Mac, but there’s a big difference between clumping some lummox on the cobbles when you’ve had a skin full, and fighting someone bare knuckle in front of the lads, for money – for git big bets, like.”
Mac sniffed.
“If you’re going to fight regular, you’ve got to pace yersel,” said Barker. “Learn control. And you’ve got to win. A bare knuckle man is only as good as his reputation and if you’re a one-punch Mary then nee-one is going to put up any prize money worth fighting for, are they?”
“Spose not.”
“Well then.”
“Well then.”
Barker stopped talking, opened his case and lit a cigarette without offering Mac one.
“So you’re going to have to keep in shape if you’re fighting for me.”
Mac helped himself to one of the cigarettes and lit it with his own matches. He took a couple of drags.
“What I mean is, I could use a radgey bastard like you,” went Barker. “I reckon between my brain and your fists and big heart we can make a pretty penny for the both of us if you want it.”
Mac shrugged.
“Aye,” he said. “You line them up Barker and I’ll switch them off. No bother.”
Barker drew on the last of his cigarette and ground it out. Then he turned and looked at me.
“And what about you Vancy Wisdom?”
“She’s got nowt to do with this,” snapped your father.
“Aye well, there’s one other thing you’ll need, lad. Patience. Patience and discipline. A fighting man needs to learn himsel the art of waiting before he can learn how to put a man twice his size on his back. And he needs to be ready at all times an all. Fights can come at a day or two’s notice and if you’re not in shape you’re banjaxed. And if you’re banjaxed you’re dead. And that means no pissing about scrapping in the town on a weekend.”
Mac grunted his approval.
“Well you leave it all up to me, bonny lad. We’ll get Christmas owe
r with first and then in the new year I’ll put the word out. All the best fights come in the spring time when the travellers are taking to the road.”
Mac stubbed out his cigarette. Barker Lovell’s cigarette.
“Line them up.”
“Remember lad: patience.”
“Aye.”
“Well then.”
“Well then what?”
“Learn it.”
“Learn what?”
“Patience you daft knacker,” said Barker. “Christ almighty.”
*
So what did you do then, Johnny?
We’re back on the route now and I’m floating. Properly floating.
I feel like I’ve lost half my body weight and though I’ve not yet shagged a lass I’ve still just done more than I’ve done before, and it felt bloody great. Top of the world, marrer. And after me dander had done spurting like a bloody burst water pipe, she’s gone fucking hell – there’s loads of it, and laughed, but not in a bad way. She’d laughed in a good way. Like she was amazed and impressed and mebbes feeling as good as me. La Vida Loca. I’d even had a good feel of her tits and rubbed her fanny through her pants, acting like I’m some kind of dab hand at the auld sex game.
And the best thing is, afterwards, when I’ve cleaned me knob off on this auld duster I keep to wipe dead flies off the windscreen she’s gone there’s plenty more where that came from. If you want it, like.
If I want it, I’m thinking. Course I bloody want it.
Oh aye, I say trying to play it cool like and nearly breaking me neck with a shrug. Oh aye.
And now we’re back on the route and the sky has cleared a bit and we’re smoking and it’s like the past few minutes never happened. She asks us where I’m living and it’s like we’re back to the formalities of conversation, so I tell her about me flat, then we sit in silence for a bit, and then that’s when she goes so what did you do then, Johnny?
I knew she’d ask us this. Of course she’d ask. About what I did. Everyone’s the same. They want to know what type of rotter they’re dealing with: a pathetic one, a dangerous one or a cool one. They want to know whether you rob auld biddies or rob banks. It makes a big difference to some people, though to me it’s all robbing, and it’s all what lazy wankers and povvy charvers do. Simple as. She’s basically asking us why I lost five years and me whole bloody family, and why I’m weird and stunted and a loner, and living in some povvy flat that even little Coughdrop turns his little wet nose up at.
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