Finishing his drink, Joe pushed past the girl. She exuded some exotic scent which assailed his nostrils like a joss-stick would an opium hater. He was glad to gulp London’s polluted air and smell the fumes belching from passing lorries.
It was late when he made his decision about the future. He would sign on the Labour, apply for a Social Security hand-out and do a bit of queer bashing on the side. Totter could go boil in his senile juices. Much as he wanted revenge he did not see any way of getting even without the fuzz clanging doors on him again. And that he was determined to avoid. He liked his freedom to pursue his solitary campaign against all humanity too much to give the law another opportunity to remove him from society’s playground.
He’d make out okay. He’d wangle another job once he got a duplicate set of insurance cards. That was easier than explaining away why he had been dismissed from such a prominent City firm. He knew some influential men now. Those antique dealers in his Mayfair club must have use of a bright boy. He could cook books given half a chance. Or run errands for about £20 a week. Or learn the racket and set up for himself when he got a few thousand together.
A few thousand! That bleedin’ Marissa had that amount. Why hadn’t he treated her right until after she had parted with her loot? he asked his agitated mind.
Navigating a steady course from City to Mayfair and, when he found Vera alone in the club, back to his fashionable flat with its now totally masculine atmosphere he let several ideas run their winding road to that most deadly “detour” sign. No matter how tantalising the notion seemed at first light there was some dark dread which prevented him from fullest acceptance. He was not afraid of getting into trouble – just of finding himself in the dock before that same magistrate. He’d done his whack of nick. Once of that was ample.
Pouring a stiff drink he whooshed in soda and sipped it as he bathed. Refreshed, helping himself to another triple pleasure he changed into casuals – content to regard his symbolic Crombie and bright, plaid socks uniform aplenty. Counting his dismissal pay he frowned. With the dwindled cash he had put aside his finances had a decidedly bleak appeal. He had to get another nest-egg, somewhere.
Entering the warehouse clubrooms he looked in vain for Marissa. He had believed she would return by now. A new face smiled at him. God, don’t they ever get young birds to take these cushy jobs? This one was older than Marissa, more motherly, more syrupy voiced. She advanced on Joe, hand out ready to draw him into her all-embracing, responsible arms.
“I’m Jenny Price,” she said. “Are you a member?”
Joe smiled, ignoring the hand as he looked around for Larry. He was reminded of Vera when he first entered her sacrosanct barland. “Yeah, I’ve been here before. Seen Larry Miller tonight?”
“That one!”
Joe quizzed her with his eyes. She had a smug, almost omnipotent chastisementic expression going.
“I told him his sort are not welcome here!”
“Who the hell are you to say who can, or cannot, come?” Joe asked in sudden anger.
“I have responsibilities...”
“You’re supposed to keep an eye on the equipment, the premises and help us if we ask for help. That’s all – and don’t deny it. I know. Marissa told me.”
The woman blanched. “You’re that beast Joe Hawkins!”
“You’ve heard about Marissa’s shack up?”
“I certainly have. You may leave immediately.”
“Shit on you!” Joe strode away. Down in the far comer of the huge room a couple of youths were heading a soccer ball. In the centre, several birds wearing stage tights tried to keep in step as an ex-dancer went through the weary motions of terpsichorean dilemma. A larger group of mixed sexes sat on the bare floor listening to an unkempt liberal spouting poetry and general blasphemy.
“Hawkins – come back!”
Jesus wept, Joe thought and continued to seek someone who might know where he could locate Larry. It was important. And he did not intend to have that old biddy scream at him for long. Her brand of authority was what his hatred was all about.
John Moore looked up, caught sight of Joe and left the “education circle”. “What the hell is she yelling at?” John asked as he joined his mate.
“Not what – me! I’m not an honoured guest...”
“No bloody wonder. Where is Marissa?”
“Gone. Left. Where is Larry?”
“In the nick doing six months.”
Joe wanted to weep. There went another of his big ideas! “And Jeremy?”
“In the coffee bar down the street.”
Jenny Price swept up, hand gripping Joe’s sleeve. Savagely he tore the Crombie material from her arresting fingers. “Leave me alone, cow!” he snarled.
The woman seemed on the edge of hysterics. John nodded and said: “Better go, Joe.”
“Not until...”
“I’ll call the police!”
Joe froze. She would too. He decided against further antagonism. “Okay, I’m going.” Turning, he walked defiantly to the door. He was burning up inside. Only the threat of police action prevented him from asserting himself and giving the bitch what she deserved.
It had been a rotten day. Fired from his job, tossed out of his Marylebone clubhouse. Larry in the nick. He felt uneasy. Maybe he should go home and sleep off the bad luck dogging his heels.
Jeremy was chatting up a fifteen year old nymphet. He did not greet Joe with any enthusiasm. Now Joe was sure he would call it a day! A lousy day!
“Can you meet me tomorrow, Jeremy?”
“What time and where?”
“My flat after seven?”
“Have Scotch and American ginger.”
Joe shrugged. He had both already. “Alone?”
Jeremy narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“I’ve got something I wanted Larry in on but he’s...”
“Out of circulation,” Jeremy laughed.
“Yeah. Okay?”
“I’ll be there. Say,” as Joe started to leave the packed coffee bar, “where is that Marissa bird?”
“How the hell should I know?” Joe shouted in reply and pushed a long-haired girl aside. He did not hear her expletive nor see the coffee she had just bought trickle down her faded blue sweater. He had other things on his mind – like a drink and sleep.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You’re stark, ruddy crazy,” Jeremy remarked as he pushed his empty glass across the coffee table. “Make it larger.” He deposited cash on the table with a show of disgust. If they were having a party or just shooting the breeze as the Yanks called it he did not object to paying his fair share for liquor. But when Joe had brought him to the flat and wanted to involve him in a highly off-beat, wild scheme it was etiquette to provide a guest with free drinks.
Joe scowled as he poured generous helpings of his best Scotch. He could not understand Jeremy’s reluctance to jump at the opportunity to get some easy loot. Larry would not have hesitated. Of that he was certain. But Larry was not available and Joe was in a hurry to build his nest-egg into an aviary-sized deposit.
“I still say it will work, “Joe said, handing his companion the extra-large drink. “Bloody Pakistani bastards don’t fight back ’cause they’re scared of us. Hell, we used to bash ’em for kicks!”
“Used to is the operative phrase, Joe.”
“What do you mean?”
Jeremy shrugged nonchalantly, sipping his drink before adding to Joe’s consternation. He could not quite put a finger on the root cause of the retrograde step Joe seemed to be taking. He wondered if it had something to do with Marissa. Since she had shacked up with Joe, the youth had kicked over many traces.
Settling back in a comfortable sofa, Jeremy asked: “Mind if I discuss this fully?”
“No – what did you mean about ‘used to’?”
“You brought up bashing Paki bastards. That went out when you turned away from being a skinhead. Hate them, get the boot in sometimes but don’t revert to bovver-boys
aggros and expect me, or us... to back you, Joe. We’re beyond that. Making a ‘hit’ for hard cash sounds terrific but not when it’s linked to the old methods.”
“Bloody hell,” Joe exploded, draining his glass and leaping across the room for a refill.
“What’s happened to you recently, Joe?”
The question caught Joe unawares. He frowned, liquor spilling on to the cabinet top.
“Marissa wasn’t all she was cracked up to be, was she?”
“She wasn’t bad...”
“She made problems for you, Joe. She made you frustrated. And when she cleared out you fell off a cliff.”
Joe mopped up the liquor pool. “What are you? A bleedin’ head shrinker?”
Jeremy smiled tolerantly. Educationally, he left Joe miles behind. His ability to probe a problem and make a fairly accurate analysis came from an inherent knowledge of what made people tick. Joe had, in his opinion, created a sex-goddess and when that object of his worship failed to produce the vital pleasures in the abundance Joe had sought, something had snapped and thrown the youth into a tailspin. The result – backtracking and a desire to refashion a life-form long since consumed by time’s forgetting fires. Joe as a skinhead now would be like a lamb amongst wolves.
“Are you going to help me?” Joe asked angrily.
“No, thanks. Count me out.”
“Some mate you’ve proved to be.”
“My advice to you is to drop the crazy idea, Joe. You’ll get nicked. Things aren’t what they once were. Pakistanis are acceptable members of every community...”
“You mean you like them?” Joe asked in amazement.
“Not me,” the other replied hurriedly.
“Then let’s do the job?”
“No – and that’s final.”
“I’ll do it myself,” Joe threatened.
“Fine. I’ll send you a Christmas card to Pentonville.” Jeremy climbed to his feet and finished his drink. “I’m shoving off, mate. Think over what I’ve said. You’re muddled. Take a few days and get roarin’ drunk.”
“The hell with you and the Marylebone Martyrs... I’ll get along on my tod.”
“Bloody good luck, mate...” Jeremy snarled as he opened the door. Standing half in, half out he grinned evilly and added: “May all your troubles be fuzz!”
*
Sunday, and Joe’s dilemma had multiplied instead of diminishing. The more he thought about Jeremy’s visit to his flat the worse his mental confusion became. Word had circulated. The Martyrs no longer existed – not for him, anyway. He had been given the cold shoulder treatment by John and Walter. He had been “allowed” to overhear Walter say: “I hate skinhead punks and ex-skinheads trying to look like suedeheads.” That had been the kiss of death.
Had Jeremy been right in tracing his failure to Marissa? Undoubtedly he had suffered at her hands. Those nights spent trying to make her react to his erotic suggestions had done more damage than he had thought possible. He could see it now – her mothering, her efforts to create in him something which was basically against his violent grain, her lack of compassion when he sought to get his hands on her money, her deep-rooted morality which refused to recognise things as they really were. She had been brazen about living with him. Her prejudices had been more volatile, more convincing than his shallow pretence to understand why everything should be classed as a suedehead hatred. He hated, true. He hated violently. Yet he did not hate with conviction as against Marissa’s bigoted look at the world. Parts of her had gladly rubbed off on him. Other facets of her being had reacted with devastating results. He was caught between her good, her evil, and totally incapable of distinguishing a real Joe Hawkins path.
“I’ve got to do something or I’ll go mad,” he told his breakfast egg. He considered several Sunday possibles and brushed all but one aside. Hyde Park Corner... There would be blacks and Irish and commies galore there. He might be able to foment trouble. Maybe even a king-sized aggro...
He was thinking wrong again! He was not a skinhead. He belonged to the elite. All he required was a bit of gentlemanly bovver to rid his body of the ambition-eating cancer that daily grew larger.
*
“This is me – the real me,” he mused as, flicking a speck of dirt from his velvet collar, he posed before a restaurant window outside Marble Arch Tube station. In his estimation he was a walking example of how the well-dressed socialite should appear in public. Crombie (with velvet collar), dark blue suit, brilliant yellow socks visible under his trousers, highly polished shoes, frill-fronted shirt, narrow floral tie and bowler perched jauntily on his head. The umbrella completed a picture of sartorial elegance.
Several tourists paused to chuckle as he passed them. A pair of hippy-types smiled behind his back. An elderly man blinked and muttered about fashion decline. A schoolgirl sighed and tried to catch his eye.
Joe was totally alone. He did not see the girl, nor the man, nor the hippies, nor the tourists. He walked with back ramrod straight, head high, umbrella swinging. His mind was already over there – in Hyde Park. Memories returned to torment him. Had he spat in the wind of fate? He felt a warm, satisfying glow permeate his being. Something was going to happen today. He sensed it...
The largest crowd was gathered around a rostrum flying a flag of a newly created African state. An ebony man wearing gaily-coloured robes occupied the rostrum, gesturing as he spoke in a loud clear voice.
“The Great White Queen sent her royal message-boys into Africa with orders to rape, and loot, and steal,” he roared. “She sent us justice in place of gold taken from our mines. She made us slaves – for that’s what her justice was. White men didn’t get brought before colonial administrators for crimes committed against Africans. Only blacks were sent to penal settlements...”
“Liar!”
The speaker gazed at the back of the crowd with a huge grin displaying pearly white teeth. He had been waiting for somebody to object. He knew how to arouse a crowd and counted on his tirade getting a heckler going. Once a verbal battle began his audience would grow, and grow, and keep growing providing he could handle himself.
“Are you a student of history, friend?” the African asked.
“I’m English. We don’t want your crowd here!”
“Oh, my,” the speaker said, gesturing to his listening sympathisers. “I’m African, sir, “he spoke directly to the hidden heckler. “Does that mean your people got out of my country and left me alone?”
Joe pushed through the thickening mass and placed himself defiantly before the rostrum. His umbrella waggled imperiously. “Your country was rotten before we took it,” he shouted. “A bunch of savages who couldn’t work or build towns...”
“Thank you, sir,” the African interrupted. “Took it, you said. And that’s what the British did. Took – by force, by underhanded deceit. We didn’t ask you to come and occupy our lands. We didn’t...”
“You hate our bloody guts yet you all flock here to get jobs,” Joe roared.
“Why shouldn’t we? You stole everything we ever had. We’ve a right to get it back.”
“Not from me mate!” Joe screamed, his fury beginning to take command. “I don’t want niggers in London.”
“Niggers?” The African scowled, leaning over the rostrum. “Don’t dare call me a nigger!”
Joe grinned sadistically and jumped forward. Like a spear his umbrella tip found a soft, fleshy target. The African’s anguished bellow sounded like a cat-call to arms in Joe’s brain. The umbrella slashed out catching an innocent bystander across the nose. Cracking bone increased Joe’s desire to inflict pain. He lunged, aiming for the speaker’s shoulder... Blood spurted from the man’s throat as the vicious tip pierced his windpipe.
Joe suddenly blanched. He didn’t like the way the man instantly sagged, nor the free-flowing blood, splattering robe and rostrum. A self-protective instinct sent him spinning into the stunned crowd. Eel-like, he wriggled from grasping hands trying to halt his progress. Cries for he
lp rang in his ears. A police whistle drove him wildly into the heavy traffic circling the park.
I’ve got to get into the tube, he told himself as he dodged cars and buses in headlong escape. The bastard deserved it...
*
Monday’s Evening Standard carried an Identikit picture of Joe. Underneath the likeness, an article condemned the violent society and those who would inhibit free speech. The writer – a distinguished legal mind – made no bones about his personal feelings. “Thugs like the one who deliberately attacked this coloured orator deserve to be put away for a very long time.”
The front page, too, carried a report on the disturbance. Eyewitness accounts proved conclusively that the assailant had not been physically provoked. A police statement said that “The attacker is expected to be apprehended shortly”. The spokesman hinted that “He is known to us”.
He studied the Identikit picture as it accused from the floor. How the bloody hell could they know him? A picture taken during his skinhead era would not even remotely look like one of him now!
He had to admit there was a superficial resemblance. But then, it could have been any one of a thousand other suedeheads.
Okay, he told his tortured mind, let’s reason this out. Can they trace me? He shuddered. Damn his rush to sign on the dole. They had a name and address there. If the fuzz were really looking for Joe Hawkins they’d have him!
Flinging his bowler across the flat, he dressed in casuals. The law was searching for a suedehead. They’d never stop him when he looked like an ordinary, decent citizen. He felt better immediately. Packing his Sanyo and some underwear into a small suitcase, he collected what was left of his cash and had a final drink. It was farewell to the flat. He could go north. Manchester had a going scene. In a few months the fuzz would forget him.
His hand was on the doorknob when he heard the solid feet approaching outside. Fear tore at his guts... No! They can’t have worked that fast...
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