by Alexei Sayle
‘Sure, imaginary scenario but you get the picture?’
‘Yes, but maybe their behaviour is because of the terrible things that happened to them … to all of you.’
‘Oh, all that was years ago, they need to get over it,’ she said indifferently.
I thought, She pretends she’s not damaged but I’m sure deep inside there’s some terrible pain, and this made me want to have sex with her more than ever.
Inside the van the lighting came only from the fringed standard lamp. We both put our food down and I slid across the carpet to Florence. I took her in my arms and we began to kiss, our faces greasy with food. I felt like a teenager on a date years ago when I’d got a girl in my parents’ front room with the gas fire going, rolling around on their patterned carpet. A while later as I came inside her, from outside there was a volley of rifle shots and some high-pitched screaming.
It was a warm early autumn day in Kelvinopolis as its progenitor, that’s me, turned his face to the sun and waited for Sidney Maxton-Brown to appear for our first site meeting. This was a month after our initial lunch at the log cabin. The trucker was forty minutes late arriving but I was happy to spend the time walking my streets, making my plans. Finally Sidney appeared looking preoccupied in the passenger seat, his grumpy-looking wife at the wheel of the Mercedes four-wheel drive. As they rolled into the empty street I could see he kept staring over his shoulder, looking out of the back window in a distracted fashion. Sidney got out of the car, shook hands with me and as his wife bounced the ML up on to the pavement and took off, said, staring back towards the main road, ‘Sorry we’re late like, there was a huge bloody crane blocking off both lanes of the East Lancs road with no bastard working on it that I could see. That wasn’t it though’ — looking nervously around him once more — ‘I think they’ve gone.’
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Fucking coppers. There was a Lancashire unit followed us from me farm and they handed over to a Merseyside vehicle at the city limits.’
‘I thought you said the coppers didn’t bother you?’
‘They don’t … didn’t, I should say, but it was the strangest thing, the day after I saw you I think it was, I was on me way to a bit of hare coursing over Parbold way, on a tiny back road, when I looks in the mirror and there’s a bleeding cop car. I couldn’t fooking believe it, pulled over by the sodding police. They knew I was a disqual … managed to give them a yarn about me being on me way to urgent chemotherapy and all the nephews falling ill at once, but they said I was being watched and if I was found driving again for any reason whatsoever I’d be back in Walton Jail.’
‘Fuck, that’s bad luck,’ I said. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Dunno.’ He looked genuinely upset. ‘I’ve got to get around. It’s bin a nightmoor this past month, the wife and the nephews driving me everywhere.’
As if I’d just thought of it I said, ‘Have you ever considered a bicycle?’
‘A bike? Fook off!’
‘I don’t drive, I ride a bike.’
‘Oh sorry, mate. No offence but I never thought of it, bikes are for kids like.’
‘Not any more Sidney, you can get real quality machines, disc brakes, full suspension, stuff like that.’
‘Er … right.’ He looked around. ‘So it’s quite a site this; you should make a few bob from these places.’
‘I suppose so,’ I replied indifferently.
‘You suppose so?’ he exclaimed. “Aven’t you done cost benefit analysis, resale projections?’
‘Naw, I don’t bother with any of that, I think if it feels right—’
‘You’re fookin’ mad!’ he shouted angrily, then tried to turn it into a joshing thing by added on a strange chortling laugh, ‘Gnooorft …’ .
I didn’t wish to let such a useful philosophical point go so I said calmly, ‘Look at me, Sidney, look at how rich I am, look at the size of the things I can do and I do them without ever, ever, thinking about how I do it. You never know, I might give some of these houses away to strangers I meet on a ferry or something.’
‘You’ll get took,’ he said.
‘Hasn’t happened yet,’ I said. ‘I’m going to do loads of landscaping here, water features, artworks all over the place.’
‘Yeah, but that’ll just jack up the value,’ he stated, at last seeing some greed in my actions.
‘Maybe, that’s not why I’m doing it. Immanuel Kant said the only truly moral act was one that brought you no benefit.’
‘Well, he’d have to be nice to people with a name like that,’ said Sidney.
Then we walked round the site and I showed him where his loads of rubble and soil would come from, telling him enthusiastically of my plans, the trenches that would be dug for sewers and services, the houses that were going to be demolished, the course of where the River Anfield would run, the areas that would need to be levelled and the others where gentle hills were to be created. Sidney’s response to all this nascent beauty was to try and jack up his price.
Those involved in what’s called groundworks — demolishing, digging, levelling — have always occupied the rougher end of the building trade. I suppose they lack the romanticism of the rest of us since they destroy rather than build. Therefore I wasn’t surprised when Sidney said, ‘We’ve got a problem here, Kelvin. I hadn’t realised there were so many ‘ouses around the edge of the site, the access is worse than I thought. I mean if I lose a load in the street or one of my trucks clips an ‘ouse the insurance will be ‘orrendous and where you’re demolishing there’s cellars that’ll be left and a truck could fall in; there’s a definite danger of contiguous collapse of ‘oles. Then there’s the soil, this soil is terrible poisoned. There’s been dye works round here since the Middle Ages so there’ll be mercury, cadmium, God knows what.’
Smiling and polite, I replied, ‘One, Sidney, I’ve looked at every drawing of this area since the Normans and this was farmland then the park of a mansion until the late nineteenth century when these houses were thrown up. Two, we’ll underpin the cellars and I’ve never heard of contiguous collapse of ‘oles whatever the bloody hell that is. Three, we both know you ain’t got no fucking insurance. I’ll give you an extra two quid a truck and that’s it.’
‘You can’t blame a fellow for trying,’ he said, his straight-ahead eye smiling and twinkling with good-natured chagrin but the other one filming over with anger and disappointment.
‘No, Sidney,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you.’
I’d left my bicycle at the bike park outside the station; when I rode into my own street it was twilight. Though I no longer drove I still noticed all distinctive cars around me and there was an unfamiliar black Mercedes CL 500 coupe with darkened windows parked a couple of doors up from my house. As I walked up the path to my own door, out of the corner of my eye I saw a man get out of the passenger side of the Mercedes and come towards me. Opening my front door slightly, giving me somewhere to escape to, I turned to face him. Suddenly running around in my head was the tune of an old club hit, ‘Now That We’ve Found Love What Are We Going To Do With It?’ by Heavy D and the Boyz. I waited for the man to reach me.
What I saw was someone of my own age, though racially what my old gran would have called ‘half chat’. Small and lithe, dressed in a three-quarter-length black leather coat, narrow black trousers and a black roll-neck top not quite covering a chunky gold chain around his neck.
“Ello, Kelvin,’ the man said.
“Ello, Machsi,’ I replied.
“‘Now That We’ve Found Love What Are We Going To Do With It?” by Heavy D and the Boyz,’ said Machsi Gorci.
‘What?’
‘What you’re humming.’
‘So it is. I didn’t think I was doing it aloud. Those were the days, eh, back in the clubs?’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Machsi, middle son of the Gorci crime family. ‘Hey, I’m glad you said “the days”, ‘cos I hate it when you see some fucking boyband cunts on MTV and
they says, “back in the day”. I mean what the fuck does that mean? “Back in the day”?’
‘I’m fucked if I know, Machsi,’ I replied. ‘I particularly hate it when one of them bands refer to “their crew”: I always think, What crew? Are you a fucking fishing smack or something?’
‘Or how about “taking it back to the old skool”. I always think Where? Like Eton or somewhere?’
‘Das right.’
‘Fucking right.’
After that there was an awkward pause so I said, ‘Machsi, would you care to come in for an aperitif?’
‘Naw thanks,’ said Machsi. ‘You know, I’ve got places to be, people to kill, that sort of thing.’
‘Really? The last time I saw you, about eight years ago in Cream, you was loved up on E and you just wanted to stroke and hug everyone and be their friend for ever and not hurt them. What happened?’
‘I read the government reports, man; that E’s a dangerous fucking drug, it can do your head in.’
‘Right. So now you’re back in the family firm?’
‘Das right.’
‘Some aspect of which I imagine you wish to talk to me about.’
‘Das right also. It’s about that kid of your friend’s.’
‘Adam?’
‘Correct.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘He’s been dealing, coke and weed, buying from one of our local franchises. But been falling short on his payments — I assume he’s been getting high on his own supply. Now in the normal run of best business practice I should have him severely beaten, but capricious acts of kindness being one of the perks of the job and as I’m aware of the trauma the lad’s suffered with his dad getting killed and all that, I’m going to allow you to pay his debt instead, seeing as I know you care for the boy and you can afford it.’
‘How much?’
‘Nine hundred quid.’
‘That’s not particularly kind, after all you’re getting paid.’, ‘But I’m diverging from what’s expected, I’m still taking a risk. See, consistency is everything when you are dealing with people of low intelligence; they don’t cope very well with nuance, and inevitably non-payment leads to a beating: that’s clarity. Now however I introduce a variable, I let somebody else pay off this kid’s debts, others will assume they can do the same so I’ll need to be extra savage with them. Do you see, at the very least it means extra work for me and a small degree of danger, so don’t tell me I’m not being kind.’
‘You’ll want cash I assume? I’ll have somebody drop it off at your office tomorrow.’
‘Cheers.’ Machsi paused and said, ‘Why aren’t you frightened of me, Kelvin?’
‘I dunno, it’s odd isn’t it?’
‘Makes a pleasant change for me,’ said Machsi Gorci as he turned and strutted back to his car.
A gaggle of teenage girls watched my every step with cold eyes as I walked up to the front door and rang the bell of the 1930s house in the leafy cul-de-sac where Paula and Adam lived.
Once inside I asked her, ‘What is it with those girls?’
‘They’re hanging around hoping to catch a glimpse of Adam; if you’d been another girl they’d probably have attacked you.’ She peered through the front window at the girls. ‘That lot are the ones attracted to his doom-laden self-destruction; there’s another gang that want to save him for Jesus: they sometimes have fights with each other.’ Coming away from the window she reluctantly enquired, ‘Do you want a coffee or something?’
‘Yeah, that’d be great.’
I sat on the couch in her front room while she made it. I’d always been particularly fond of Paula, back in the day. Of all the girls in the group I’d got on with her the best; it had really upset me that I couldn’t see her after the split with Colin. I suspected that she had had quite strong feelings for me too; there’d always been a little something extra between us. Before the accident I’d occasionally considered going round to her house one night, casually dropping in; in those days a lonely woman that knew me well was right up my street.
As she came back in carrying two coffee mugs I thought that she was still a very pretty woman, short and dark with olive skin, long auburn hair right down her back. She looked more like Adam’s sister than his mum; in fact she didn’t look like she had anything to do with him at all, which would have been a good thing since I suspected that boy was going to bring her a load of trouble.
‘I wanted to talk to you about Adam,’ I said.
‘Oh fuck, what is it now?’ she asked, her face going pale.
‘He’s been dealing drugs.’
‘Shit!’
‘Did you know?’ I asked her.
‘No. I mean I know he was smoking dope and stuff, all those losers he hangs with do that. Is it just dope he’s selling?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, God. Are you certain about this — it isn’t gossip or anything?’
‘No and there’s worse. Machsi Gorci came to see me. I had to give him nine hundred quid that Adam owed and couldn’t pay.’
Now she was really frightened; she clutched her chest. ‘Ah Christ, Machsi Gorci …’
‘It’s okay,’ l said rapidly to calm her down. ‘I paid him off. I paid him off and he’ll make sure nobody’ll give Adam credit no more, but he’s been fucking stupid. Adam’s going to get killed if he fucks around with the likes of Machsi Gorci.’
‘I know. There was a kid in the next street that they dragged out of his gran’s house and beat with baseball bats.’ I said, ‘Do you want me to have a word with him?’
‘I don’t know what good that’ll do,’ she replied, twisting her fingers with agitation.
‘Well, we get on, he might listen.’
‘I guess,’ she said without conviction. Paula called to her son. A few minutes later he came down the stairs and dropped on to the couch in the living room.
‘Awright, Kelvin mate,’ he said. ‘Hi, Adam,’ I replied.
‘I’m not Adam no more,’ he said. ‘I’m DJ Rock.’
‘Uh, okay.’
Before the trouble in the pub Adam’s accent had been half Lancashire and half Liverpool; now he was talking in the intonations of an out-and-out Scouse scally. Also his clothes had changed: now he was wearing a shell suit composed of every pastel shade that there was. I was surprised to see that there was a pastel shade of black.
I tried to tell him in serious tones about my visit from Machsi Gorci. I might as well have been talking to my dad’s dog — the boy didn’t seem surprised or upset.
‘Honest, mate,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry you was bothered. I’ll pay you back; starting next week. Me and me mate Simon are making a record next week that’s gonna be massive in the clubs. Then I’m going to Preston to do a three-year course in aeronautical design. An’ you don’t have to worry about the drugs — I’ve stopped doing that. I know I fucked up, Kelvin, Mum, but I’m gonna be clean and serene from now on.’
‘Oh, Adam … er … DJ Rock,’ his mum said, seeming really relieved, ‘that’s great, I’m so pleased.’
Not so easily placated, I enquired, ‘This college, don’t you need like science A levels?’
‘You’d think so,’ Adam said, ‘but not if you show exceptional promise. I’ve done all these sketches of futuristic planes that they say are the best they’ve ever seen.’
I could see that might work for art school like it had done for me, but I was surprised that you could get on to an aeronautical design course that way; however there was no denying the kid’s absolute sincerity so I guessed it must be so.
‘Great,’ I said.
‘I could pay you back by direct debit,’ the boy said. ‘I’ll set it up tomorrow.’
‘Great,’ I said again, though he never did.
When I got home from Paula’s house it was eleven o’clock at night and Florence’s truck was parked outside, bringing a sinister whiff of Balkan mountainside to this prosperous lane: That week cirKuss were in St Helens so it was only a twen
ty-five-minute drive for her.
In the month since we’d got together me and Florence had evolved a routine. Every week or every two weeks she would be performing in a different town in the north-west; if she was nearby, a couple of nights I would take taxis to where she was performing — sometimes I felt I’d run away from home to be next to the circus. After the show we might go out in the town or I would simply sleep over in her truck following a meal with the rest of the cast. I was often woken in the middle of the night by trouble, either between the cirKuss folk or the police being called or some irate father yelling about his dishonoured daughter.
Though the cirKuss performers generally had nothing to do with the .ordinary inhabitants of the towns they visited, backstage there would sometimes be a local, generally a dusty-looking middle-aged man. One time in Bolton I asked one of them, ‘What do you do?’
‘I own a psychic shop,’ he replied.
In Stockport I asked a similar-looking guy the same question and he said, ‘I own a psychic shop.’
The cirKuss’s day off was a Monday so after the show on Sunday night Florence would drive over to my place in her truck and we could play house till Tuesday afternoon with her in the role of the suburban English girlfriend. First thing on a Monday morning she would shake me awake, coerce me up and dragoon me into a forced march to the Safeway Superstore even if we didn’t need any groceries. Ideally for her we would have gone there in some sort of small hatchback but I still wouldn’t drive and her truck was too big for our tiny town centre, knocking over road signs and flattening parking meters the one time we tried it.
In the aisles of the supermarket she would make up stuff about our imaginary suburban life together. ‘Oh, I think these eggs will be ideal for the omelettes I will make when your boss and his black mistress come for dinner,’ she would say in a loud voice, or ‘I need to buy home pregnancy kit for our daughter Flinka, where would I find that?’ After shopping we would have the all-day breakfast in the Cafe Fresco that was attached to Safeway’s.
One day when we were in there I said to Florence, ‘I’ve been thinking I might throw a dinner party for a couple of friends of mine.’