by Alexei Sayle
The sulphurous stench drifting from the adjacent cabbage fields even conspired to lend the air a demonic odour so that the man standing at the top of the pine staircase, the man who had ruined my life with his indifference, seemed even more utterly banal than if he’d been encountered under more normal circumstances. Behind Sidney was a thin silent girl of perhaps fifteen holding a baby and a young boy and girl with runny noses holding the older woman’s skirt. Fighting the simultaneous impulses both to run and to launch myself at the man’s throat, I waved and smiled, Sidney waved back and I mounted the stairs to meet him.
‘All right?’ said Sidney in a thick Lancashire accent. ‘The is me daughter Susam and me wife Barbara’ (the smaller youngsters never rated an introduction). ‘I thought we’d have, a bid of lunch while we talked so sid down, sid down.’
‘Yes, you boys sid down and I’ll ged you dinner,’ said Barbara.
On the verandah there was a long pine table on which had been laid two places facing each other; alongside each plate was a small quarter-litre bottle of fizzy pop. The women and children went off inside the log house and me and Sidney sat at the table.
‘This is quite a house,’ I said.
‘Oh aye, the “Wounded Knee” model. ‘Ad it shibbed over from Canada, not strictly allowed to build a house on this land zoned for agriculture but I got away with it, claimed it was an ostrich fattening shed, temporary agricultural structure see? Got a EC subsidy for the ostriches as well.’ Behind his thick-lensed brown spectacles Sidney’s single good eye shone with glee while the other faulty one stared off towards the tree line with a cynical and bored insouciance as if to say to me, ‘I know what you’re up to, darling, you can’t fool me.’
‘Now I’ve got four bedrooms,’ Sidney continued. ‘Sure I’ve got to keep an ostrich in one of them but it’s a small price to pay. Double height living area; kitchen up here and the offices of me haulage firm downstairs; that’s not strictly legal either but you can tie the council up for years with appeals so they usually give up.’ As Sidney talked, a litany of planning wheezes, bribed officials, unsound structures, my gaze wandered; from this first-floor eyrie I could see off to the left in a slashed and burned patch of ancient woodland and rare orchids, five extremely battered four-axle tipper trucks of various vintages and makes, a Mercedes four-wheel drive and a Jaguar with, for some reason, Monaco number plates. These were not the vehicles that really caught my eye however, because parked in a neat row at right angles to the civilian trucks were a couple of German World War Two Kubelwagen scout cars, a German half-track and, looming over them all, the long barrel of its 75mm cannon casting a lengthy shadow across the grass, was a 1943 Panther Mark 4 tank. All of these were painted in grey camouflage and carried the twin lightning strike symbols of an SS Panzer Regiment.
‘Interested in my liddle army are you?’ said Sidney, following my gaze.
‘I don’t know many people that have their own Panther Mark 4 tank.’
‘You know your armour,’ Sidney said approvingly. ‘Oh aye, I’m in one of them historical re-enactment groups, the first British SS Leibstandart Division. We do World War Two battles and our massacre of Polish civilians is very popular. There’s actually a group who specialise in being massacre victims, they do some lovely pleading for their lives. I don’t want you to think it’s anythin’ fascist mind, we’ve got a couple of darkie lads in our regiment … come to think of it they might be a bit fascist, certainly don’t seem too keen on the Jews; still, they god their own Mark 6 Tiger in lovely condition, armed with the rare 88mm gun it is.’
‘Black SS officers?’
‘Well, they wear big helmets and goggles to cover them up so the audience can’t see they’re darkies. We’re all ‘oping to go to western Russian next year to re-stage the Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle of all time, against collectors of Soviet tanks.’
‘What, Russians? I’m surprised they can afford it.’
‘No, no, not Russians, they’re nod interested, Americans mostly. The largest regiment of Red Army T34s, the Ninth Guards Armoured is actually based in Los Angeles.’
Barbara Maxton-Brown served us lunch, which was a single pork chop garnished with half a pear lying on a plate accompanied by a pile of hummus, boiled carrots, some Chinese noodles and next to it tinned peas mixed with tartare sauce served in a porcelain teacup.
From time to time while we ate and talked another different teenager with I suppose a different baby would wander out on to the verandah then go back inside and some other little ones would wander in a line across the spartan grass as if in a mini version of one of Sidney’s re-enactments.
Since I had conceived it, my plans for Kelvinopolis had grown as I realised that my way to forming a relationship with Sidney Maxton-Brown was to get him involved in its construction. I needed there to be such a large amount of rubble and dirt that required shifting that I could keep him working for me for a long time and I wanted it to be such a large tempting job that he would be forced to put up with all the strange things I might ask him to do. I said, ‘Now this development is six terraced streets, thirty houses each side in a street; we’ll strip out every house which should be enough rubble for two twelve-yard tipper trucks. I’ll pay one hundred and eighty-five pounds per truck. It’s going to be at least a one-year contract: there’ll be site waste to shift as well as the rubble stripped out from the houses. That’s not all though. We’re going to demolish the central streets so there’ll be a big open area that I’m going to plant an eco forest in. Now you probably know the thing every upscale development needs is a water feature: there’s no canal nearby and the river’s two miles away so I’m going to dig my own. I’m going to call it the River Anfield. That means there’ll be a lot of soil from that that’ll need taking away. Of course you’ll have to pay dump fees out of the price but it’s still a tidy profit.’
‘It’s an even tidier profit if you fly tip one load in four,’ simpered Sidney Maxton-Brown.
‘Well, that’s up to you,’ I replied. ‘But isn’t fly tipping a bit risky these days?’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about that,’ said Sidney. ‘I know an out-of-the-way place. I mean, nobody visits those national parks anyway.’
So far so obvious. I had already figured out that one of the many corners, roundabouts and contraflows that Sidney Maxton-Brown would cut would be the avoidance of landfill fees by a bit of fly tipping: he would simply unload his trucks at any quiet spot he could find.
In anticipation of this I had already spoken to the boss of the reputable quality firm that usually handled my tipping. ‘So what you’re saying,’ said the incredulous boss, ‘is that you want me to pick up the rubble from the job that this cowboy will be fly tipping and take it to the proper dump.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you’ll pay top rate for this?’
‘Two hundred pound a truck.’
‘But I’m not getting the job itself.’
‘Well in a manner of speaking you are since you’ll be taking a fair portion of the waste from the job to the tip.’
‘That’s fucked up.’
‘Look, all right,’ I said. ‘I promise I’ll also find another better, bigger job for you somewhere else. Satisfied?’
‘No, not really, no. It’s fucking mad.’ A thought struck the contractor. ‘Here, you’re not having a nervous breakdown are you?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘nothing so simple.’
Over dessert of digestive biscuits, whipped cream and Smarties Sidney said, ‘Kelvin, I have to tell you that I recently served a term in prison.’
‘Oh really?’ I said, acting all innocent. ‘What for?’
‘A miscarriage of justice,’ replied Sidney.
‘Really, how come?’ I said, twisting a fork out of sight under the table to stop myself stabbing him with it.
‘Pure and simple, I was involved in a road accident where some people god accidentally killed, yet it was me got put in prison. See I never set out
to kill those people, now how can it be a crime if I never set out to kill them? A crime is beating up pensioners or those sick bastards who go around molesting little kiddies that’s what makes me mad, that’s who the police should be after, nod somebody like me. All I do is I put my family first but everybody does that, don’t they? I try to make a little money, to get by, to put food on my family’s table, to pay for my daughter’s operation … if she ever needs one that is.’
‘So have they let you out on appeal or something?’ I enquired, and it was at this point that Sidney told me about his lucky stomach cancer.
‘I assume you’re still banned from driving,’ I said to stop himself tearing the haulier’s lying, self-righteous throat out with my hands. ‘So who does your driving now that you’re banned?’
‘Well, I use the nephews sometimes, but between you and me I’m still driving meself’ — here he became heated — ‘even though, even though, and the courts never took this into account, I’ve been suffering flashbacks since the crash. Well, I think they’re flashbacks, they’re a bit too short to tell really, somethin’ to do with a field and some mud and a donkey as far as I can sort it out. I mean all the family say I should apply for compensation like they tell you to on the telly but I wouldn’t do that, Kelvin, I’m no freeloader. Sidney Maxton-Brown pays his own way in the world.’
‘So,’ I persisted, ‘you’re still driving?’
‘Oh aye, what am I supposed to do living out here? I gotta drive, ain’t I, how can I ged about otherwise? It’s victimisation to make a man with cancer … well, I always thought it was victimisation, whatever. I’m not going to get caught, am I? There’s not much chance of the coppers checking, is there? Especially since I keep to the quiet roads. You ever been stopped? I certainly ‘aven’t and I been driving like a right cunt on many an occasion.’
‘That’ll be eight quid, mate,’ demanded the taxi driver (not the same one as before) who dropped me back at my house. Then, ‘I’ve always wanted to be a horse. I feel my whole life has been an empty lie because of it, I wish somebody would put a saddle on me and ride me through the … two quid change, there you go.’
I phoned Paula as soon as I got inside.
‘Oh, it’s you, what do you want?’ she snapped.
Unable to come straight out with it I lied. ‘I was just ringing to find out how Adam is … You know, since that night.’
‘How do you think he is? I fucking wish you hadn’t let him go to the fucking pub.’
‘But you let him go to the pub all the time,’ I whined.
‘I know but I trusted you to look after him, you should have more sense.’
‘So how is he?’ I persisted, now suddenly needing to know.
She sighed. ‘Well, since you asked, not too good. He hasn’t gone back to school, he’s really moody and he’s been hanging round with all these losers in the neighbourhood. They’ve nicked his mobile phone and he pretends not to care.’
‘Oh … er … oh.’
‘Does that make you feel better?’
‘No, not really, I dunno, maybe he’ll straighten out, kids do.’
‘And kids don’t. Was there anything else?’
‘Yes actually. Look, I wanted to talk to you about that Sidney Maxton-Brown.’
Here came the other element in my plan — to try and make the tipper driver live in a moral universe, a universe where his actions always had consequences.
Anger crept into her voice. ‘You know the police never told us he was out. I mean I’m glad the bastard is dying but the coppers’ first response was to make feeble threats to arrest Adam and his mates ‘cos it was them who had initially assaulted Sidney’s nephews. The Friends and Family have been raising holy shit with them; they’re desperate now to make amends.’
‘Well, that’s good because get this,’ I told Paula. ‘Somebody told me they’d seen him and he’s driving again, cars and trucks. I think the authorities would be eager to make amends by ensuring that that doesn’t continue, don’t you think?’
‘That bastard! That fucking bastard,’ she shouted. ‘He won’t be doing much driving. I’ll make sure of that. Thank you for that, Kelvin. You know it made us feel powerless to know he was out, at least to stop him driving will be something.’
‘Yeah, that’s something.’
‘It’ll be a year you know since the … since the … next week, we’re holding a sponsored swim, will you be coming?’
I said, ‘I’ll think about it.’
6
A crescent moon hung over the cirKuss ground. The grey wagons had been formed into a sort of town square, in the centre of which the performers and stage hands queued to get their pay for the week. Behind a pine trestle table one of the older clowns took notes out of a tin box and handed them over with an ungracious grunt. Florence had whispered to me as we sat on the steps up to her truck, me feeling like a conspicuous intruder, ‘See Cronko the Clown, he is boss; the older ones say it was the same in Soviet circus days, clown was always boss and clown was always KGB. See now it all makes perfect sense that nobody likes clowns. I suppose all American clowns are CIA.’ Then she skippingly took her place in line. Tonight Florence was wearing tight camouflage pants low down on her hips to show the curve of her lower belly, a short olive-green top that painstakingly outlined her breasts and big polished black army boots.
As I admired. her lovely behind I thought about the eight girls I’d had sex with: it struck me there’d always been some flaw in their physical make-up; say they would have a wonderful pretty face and terrific upper body but then it would end in one thick stumpy leg and one chopstick thin one, or she’d have great tits stuck on one of those rippling bony chests, or a perfect body but hair like Ken Dodd’s. This hadn’t stopped me being in love with several of them and in fact a girl with the perfect arse but a neck like a WWF wrestler had broken my heart.
I worried that if I had sex with Florence for the first time tonight would I get the full benefit of seeing her flawless face and body? The problem, I realised, was that you can’t get far enough back if you are in the process of fucking them to appreciate what they look like: what you ideally need, I thought, is a cock that is, say’ seven foot long, though obviously you would only insert the first foot or so but then with a seven-foot cock you’d be able to get far back enough to get a good look at them and to relish their body while you were doing them. Of course with such a long cock you’d have nothing to do with your hands, you wouldn’t be able to fondle anything unless your arms were also seven foot long but that would be ridiculous.
Once everyone was paid, from out of their trucks women began to carry large pots of hot spicy food which they laid out on the trestle table. A lot of the men lounged about pouring viscous drinks for each other from clear glass bottles with no labels on them, but other more industrious males threw together instant barbecues out of bricks and twisted wire on which they were soon cooking skewered cubes of meat, red peppers and chunks of onion. In the meantime a couple of the younger men had set up twin record decks hooked up to huge speakers from the cirKuss PA; they began by playing Coldcut featuring Lisa Stansfield, followed by KLF ‘What Time is Love?’ then a further string of hits from my teenage years.
Florence had conspicuously taken no part in the catering; instead she had lounged beside me on the steps of her truck with a vaguely sneering expression on her face. A couple of times older women seemed to address sarcastic remarks at her in a variety of languages to which she would spit back short epithets. At one point, from across the square Valery seemed to try and approach her but a girl with long red hair ran over, caught him by the arm and dragged him reluctantly backwards while her eyes shone hatred at a simpering Florence. I felt like I was an extra in one of those giant open-air productions of Carmen that we’d seen at Earls Court back in the mid 1990s.
Except the soundtrack for this show was from the early days of acid house rather than Bizet. Even before all the food was ready there had been a brief knife fight betw
een two acrobats and a few minutes later the red-haired girl ran diagonally across the plaza weeping, with her mane streaming out behind her like a fighter jet on reheat. ‘Is always fucking like this,’ said Florence, then, ignoring further pointed remarks from fellow cast members, she pushed her way through the crowd at the pine table, now piled its whole length with stews, salads, grilled fish, hunks of bread, piles of rice and cracked wheat. Taking two plates, she loaded them with food and brought them back to me. ‘Let’s go inside to eat,’ she said. As I mounted the steps I saw, emerging purposefully from the shadows, the acrobat who had lost the fight; in his hands he held an AK47 assault rifle.
We both sat on the floor, Florence with her back against the couch, me leaning on the armchair as we ate our food.
I said, ‘Quite a party out there.’
‘Yeah, first fifty times is fun,’ she replied, ‘then it start getting on your nerves. Those people got a lot of problems, it makes them kinda tiring.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘All this passion all the time. Crying and fighting and stealing things from shops. When you live in the middle of it it’s exhausting. Nobody here can simply get themself something like an index-linked pension for old age: they have to buy a big diamond from a Chinese man in Newcastle, then their brother steals the diamond, then turns out diamond is fake so two brothers get together to kill Chinese man in Newcastle.’
‘That’s just hypothetical, right?’