by Gerald Wixey
My eyes widened, what a stupid thing to say! ‘I’m an apache. We don’t wear shoes.’
‘You’re a fuckwit.’
I stared at him. ‘What’s a fuckwit? Is it a bird?’
Kenny brought his eyes up to me and stared. A hint of a smile spread across his thin lips. ‘Yeah – go and tell your mum she’s a pretty little fuckwit – she’ll like that.’
I considered this for a moment, watching the older boy shuffling the comics into some sort of order. After a lot of thought, I decided to ignore his request. It didn’t quite ring true somehow. Mum’s a fuckwit?
Inwardly shaking my head, I said, ‘I could bring the comics down every week if you like.’
‘Yeah – that would be better.’
‘Okay,’ I chirped, ‘See you next week, fuckwit.’
I turned my imaginary horse back towards the reservation and galloped off, the dog bouncing along beside me, still joined to my hip.
***
The bar became my safe haven, a secure anchorage and, best of all, close to my harbourmaster. Close to my old man in action, what could be better? I rested my elbows on the counter and looked at the disparate crew on the other side. Stopcock Arthur, Tommy, Mr. Goldstone, Fred, Jack the Scribe, Bert, German Joe, Jim the Demon and Ron. At different times, my old man shouted at them, insulted them, waved his fist. He’d even been known to shake the occasional customer now and again. But mostly he made them laugh and he nursed their drinking habits. For a man lacking any subtlety in his everyday relationships, dad encouraged them to drink with a delicate touch that belied his ham-fisted lifestyle. With the exception of Mr. Goldstone, they were a big drinking group.
Most evenings, I sat in amongst them; at the age of ten, I’d become an expert on beer and the speed they drank it. I was supposed to help dad serve while he played darts. I listened to the gossip and the arguments. They were a fierce bunch, but on the whole a happy group and one that never missed a minutes work. Mum thought them all suited to a bygone age; she told me they’d been born four hundred years too late, she imagined them throwing chicken bones into a huge, blistering fire and mauling abundantly endowed strumpets. She intended this as a damning denunciation of their lifestyles, but when my old man told them, they nodded, smiled and took it as a compliment.
Jack the Scribe told me that people like Tommy and Ron took their quick tempers out for the night, arm in arm into small town boozers like ours. Often with the best intentions; to drink a degree of forbearance into their bad tempers. Instead, alcohol shortened their low-amperage fuses, then they wanted to bully and argue and fight.
Dad always kept a cap on things; he was the only one allowed to get punchy in this pub. Alert, cocked and often unhinged; watching and waiting for them to say or do the wrong thing. If an argument started, dad turned from a jovial landlord, into a violent exothermic reaction specifically directed at anyone looking for a fight.
The front door creaked into my daydream; all the heads turned on well oiled pivots and swivelled towards the noise. Uncle Wyn came through with a solemn look on his face that suggested fast women and slow horses – hah!
‘Good evening gentlemen – small shandy, landlord, please. Anyone else?’
I loved that question – anyone else? No-one ever said yes please or no thanks, just empty glasses slid across a beer-stained bar. Despite them all finding Wyn too smart, too smug and too ostentatious, they were all happy to take one off him whenever he offered.
Good old Wyn; he’s not so bad really.
My old man glowered across at me. ‘Go on then, make your old uncle a shandy.’
I always glanced nervously across towards Fred whenever I served anyone.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ dad yelled for Fred’s benefit as much as mine. ‘He’s not a proper policeman.’ Concerns about the age of workers in this particular licensed premises went unconsidered by the local constabulary.
My old man placed an inverted pint glass in the drip tray directly under the beer tap and placed Wyn’s glass on top, allowing me to use two hands on the handle of the beer pump.
I felt his breath on my neck as he bellowed instructions from close behind me, ‘Not too much beer – you know what a nancy boy he is.’
As I passed the shandy across to him, Wyn’s cologne came across from the other side of the bar to greet me. It was the first time I’d smelt this on a man and I enjoyed getting close enough to smell the sweetness on him. I stared at Wyn and an earlier conversation between Jack and my old man rang in my ears.
‘Your brother has this supernatural trick that allows him to bump into women, as if by magic, accidentally as it were and yet never cause offence.’
‘Hmmm.’ Dad was less than impressed with this assessment. ‘He’s a chancer.’
‘Don’t get me wrong Harry, I’m not defending what he does. Just impressed with how he does it.’ Jack pressed on, ‘He hasn’t lost it, the way he talks to women. Depending upon their disposition, they either see it as a warning, or more likely, an irresistible invitation. He is after all, a generous and considerate man.’
My old man snapped at Jack, ‘He’s like an old dog after anything female that’s still got…’
Dad noticed me and turned the other way.
It just stimulated my interest, I watched Wyn all the more closely now. Wyn liked women, women liked him and he wanted all of them. He thrived around unhappy women and useless husbands. Chivalrous, certain and suave, but beneath it all, he was as hard as polished teak.
Wyn’s eyes had dark shadows under them, his steadfastness chipped away by demanding bookmakers and difficult women; another worn little glance at me – the cost of the pleasures of excess are often excessive. Mum’s murmured words; rumours of a pregnant teacher half his age, turning up crying at the door and both Auntie Doris and Wyn’s world upside down once more.
He’d spent most of his life with the balanced sureness of a cat, rarely caught out. An occasional little local difficulty maybe, sometimes it required a few days away from Doris. Let the dust settle and furs unruffled, then creep back, sorry my dear, don’t know what got into me. No reprieve this time, however; whispers about something being absolute and solicitors and locks being changed.
So Wyn had joined the ranks of the drinking men, not a volunteer like the rest of them, an enlisted man that didn’t crave a drink so much as he needed company. Wyn and Jack had become firm friends overnight. This surprised me a touch; Jack kept his distance generally, but the two of them regularly had their heads together, whispering mostly.
About this time every evening, mum had brought him a pot of fresh coffee through. Wyn made a pot every morning – my first encounter with fresh coffee. The usual breakfast smells of toast, melting butter, freshly cut bread and tobacco were joined by the lavish fog of freshly made coffee. Steaming hot, very black, strong and with a burnt smell that I followed with my nose in the air; sniffed like a dog after a bitch. Now he did the same in the evening and the others shook their heads in disbelief – coffee!
He knew this would be an act of provocation, nearly an act of war. Virtuous outrage focussed on Wyn and he revelled in it; Wyn needed righteous indignation directed his way, it got him going, energised his mood. Coming into the bar after a fruitless, dispiriting afternoon in the betting shop. Wyn stirred all of them up too, a mutually beneficial arrangement – he would be the first to admit that he needed a good shaking.
He sometimes sat with Mr. Goldstone, the steaming coffee spiralling up between them, mixing with Wyn’s cigar smoke from one side of the table and Mr. Goldstone’s Park Drive induced column of perniciousness from the other.
‘A cup, David?’
Another act of provocation; Wyn would be well aware that acceptance of this offer would result in my old man blowing his stack. Mr Goldstone looked undecided. I felt that sometimes with his steel-rimmed glasses and faded blue suit, he had the appearance of a small town solicitor, one who had landed in the bar by acciden
t whilst on the way to the opticians. But Mr Goldstone’s ever-sensitive nature meant that he was mindful that the wrong answer to Wyn’s question would turn dad nuclear.
Mr. Goldstone’s eyes flicked from the coffee pot to the spare cup, to the jug of single cream and then over to the brown sugar. He glanced nervously towards the bar, where his eyes jolted into dad’s destructive frown, sighed, then; ‘No thanks Wyn – very nice of you, but it keeps me awake at night.’
I smiled at Mr Goldstone’s mastery of the discreet lie. The chorus at the bar had a collective shaking of heads, disappointed at the ambassadorial reply to Wyn’s offer.
Dad looked along the irregular contour line of drinkers and shook his head as he said, ‘He’ll expect me to get a waitress for him soon.’
Everyone laughed except Ron; he just stared at Wyn, his mouth hanging open and his Woodbine stuck to his bottom lip, like he’d just seen a ghost or a long-lost relative that had returned after thirty years in the crusades. I guessed that it was just Ron’s twisted perception of any man who looked after his appearance. He regarded them all rather like a Mormon views a profane Negro, a mixture of surprise, bewilderment and downright loathing.
Wyn must have felt the stare because he turned slowly in his chair and spotted Ron. His eyebrows went up, and then the slow, slow smile; like a wolf viewing a rabbit with a bad leg. ‘Hello Ron – how’s that gorgeous wife of yours?’
Ron turned back and rested both elbows on the bar, his head slumped forward, the cigarette only inches above the ashtray. He sighed and the ash whipped up like a snow plume on a high peak. I suddenly remembered my task for the evening and slipped out behind my old man, threw the light switch at the top of the stairs and went down into the cellar. At the end of the line of beer barrels, was an empty crisp tin. In it, my old man kept his cuttings. Only the fights he won of course.
I sat on an upturned crate and shuffled through the parchment-dry cuttings, until I found the one that always hooked me. I’d read it so many times, asked my old man about it once – rubbish, take no notice. I went back up the flagstoned stairs, reading on the move. Always a good time to ask questions when he’s surrounded by his mates. I looked for him and he was stood by the dartboard, waiting to throw. Dad noticed me and his eyebrows went up, he shouted my way.
‘Look after that miserable crowd, won’t take me a couple of minutes to beat the Paddy.’
Tommy’s dart unerringly missed treble sixty and hung in the single five bed, forlorn and alone. Then the curses. ‘Fucken talking when I’m fucken throwing, you fucken turd.’
I showed Jack the cutting. His face did what it always did, went scarlet as he fumbled for his cigarettes. It was a picture of dad with the Southern Area belt held aloft in one gloved hand, his other arm around Wyn, the boxing glove resting on Wyn’s expensive shirt, both of them grinning from ear to ear, one of my old man’s eyes shut, but he wasn’t winking.
I moved close to Jack and said, ‘Who’s Major Wyn Watkins?
‘Give it to me, my boy.’ Wyn’s beaming face reassured me that he wasn’t about to shout at me or rip dad’s cutting into a thousand pieces. He read it slowly, smile still in place, an occasional nod. ‘We cleaned up that night. Tell him what happened, Jack… Harry.’ Wyn turned towards my old man as he tried for the double eight needed to win the game. Apparently oblivious to the likely effect of disturbing his brother at such a critical moment, Wyn asked. ‘Haven’t you told the boy about this?’
Dad’s eyes never left the dartboard and the first arrow went straight into the middle of the double eight bed. I imagined a collective sigh of relief from the gathering that mirrored my own sense of release as another storm blew harmlessly windward side.
‘I’ll tell him when his voice breaks.’ He not only found that funny, but as far as dad was concerned, it closed the matter as well. It never answered the question though, Wyn had never been in the services. Dad always said that fleecing middle-aged women had become a reserved wartime occupation, as far as Wyn was concerned.
Wyn’s eyebrows came up and he smiled at me as he handed the cutting back. ‘Nom de Plume, my boy. After all, boxing is just another branch of show business.’ He showed me the palms of his hands – honest.
I glanced across for Jack for confirmation. He wouldn’t look my way. Ron would, though. ‘Some people did time for what they did in the war – or didn’t do in the war.’
Jack’s head slumped onto his chest. Wyn found something interesting on the ceiling and Ron pushed his face close to mine. Tobacco, beer and cutting fluid mingled away close to my nose. ‘Ask the flash bastard what he knows about impersonating army officers.’
Jack lifted his head and spoke softly. ‘That’ll do – sleeping dogs.’
‘You’d better not say too much either.’ Ron sneered and went back to his beer. Wyn stirred his coffee, for minutes, it seemed. My old man bustled across and waved his darts under Ron’s nose, whose eyes crossed momentarily as the feathered flights brushed against his nose.
‘Don’t stir the shit in here.’ Dad pressed one of his oft-broken fingers onto the end of Ron’s nose. ‘Okay?’ Ron never moved and said nothing. My old man said it once more, pressing his finger harder against Ron’s snout. ‘Okay?’
It had to be the briefest of nods, Ron’s range of movement hampered by a high-pressured digit not only compressing his nose, but bringing tears to his eyes as well. There followed a few seconds similar to the overture of a bar being wrecked in Dodge City. Silence… I imagined I could hear the eyes as they flashed everywhere, accompanied by a collective holding of breaths. This had to be a good time for another question.
I remembered Wyn calling Shirley by a different name. ‘Who’s Shirley Anne Mathews?’ Delivered in my best wide-eyed, boy scout guise. ‘Is it Shirley?’
Nothing came back my way, except for the usual hatred from Ron as his mouth turned down and his eyes closed to slits. Then he looked back down to his beer and said in a soft voice. ‘Shirley’s maiden name.’
The silence screeched on, until the front door opened and a young woman came through, cradling a tiny baby in her arms. This was a novelty in a couple of ways: I’d never seen a baby in the bar before and I’d never seen a woman at this time of the evening. This was after all, the after-work drinking club and strictly men only. She was tall and slim, with short blonde hair. I couldn’t see her face.
She hurried up to Jack and said, ‘His watch is missing. It was a present. I gave it to him last year. It wasn’t on him. The police aren’t bothered – Alan never took it off, even at work.’
Jack said, ‘What can I do?’
‘Ask that Inspector friend of yours, please. Someone must know where it is.’
Jack said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
But she wasn’t listening. With the tears flooding down her face, she turned and hustled out, leaving a room full of confused faces behind her.
Silence, until Wyn said. ‘Good-looking woman.’
Chapter 6
1972
Kathy had her forearm across my chest. She raised a cautionary eyebrow as a small cloud raced across her face. ‘We’re not being sensible about this.’
I didn’t want a sensible conversation; I needed tranquillity, so I leant into her neck, like a dog remembering a long lost, familiar smell and inhaled her deeply. I had just come and seen stars in the middle of the morning, stuck firmly in that tranquil, post-coital place, a drugged memory of recent events and heightened anticipation of the next coming together. I didn’t want sensible; my eyebrows formed a questioning frown, what do you mean?
‘We got out of the car, we kissed, held each other like…’ Kathy left it hanging, sighed and ran the back of her finger across my cheekbone. ‘We walked across the car park kissing, arm in arm – anyone could have seen us.’
I gazed up at her, gave an inward shrug. ‘I found it irresistible, I wanted to kiss as soon as you got in the car. I drove here wanting not just to kiss you and�
� Well, wanting you.’ I pushed the hair back from her face. ‘I parked, we kissed – I can’t keep my hands off you.’
She smiled and suddenly sat up, drew her knees up and pulled the sheet under her chin staring blankly down onto the bed. She sighed, ‘I think everyone’s going mad, mum and dad. Me, especially me. Funeral’s… Whenever the police feel like releasing the body. It’s driving dad round the bend.’
‘What about you? How are you coping?’
‘I… I always thought Declan died twelve years ago, I mean it was like I knew he was dead. Dad felt the same. He never said anything, but I know. Mum always felt that he’d turn up one day; she prayed everyday, laid a place at the table every meal for him.’
I knew all of this. Bernice went into church every morning before she came in to clean for us. Tommy denied what had happened to the world, and at the same time, held endless monologues with his wandering son. He refused to mention his name but asked his advice, talked about the weather, football results; everything and anything.
‘What about you though, how do you feel?’
Kathy finally brought her eyes into mine, ‘What do you mean?’
Exasperated I asked, ‘How are you?’
‘I’m OK, just worried about everyone else.’
‘You should think of yourself for once.’
‘What do you think I’m doing here then?’
I looked away from her. ‘I try not to think about things; why you ring me, why you want me. I just worry that it’ll all stop one day.’
You see, Kathy had crashed into my consciousness with the force and subtlety of a falling meteorite. The same thought as the last time; I may be inside her, but she’s inside my head, a deep vein miner who had lost all sense of direction, burrowing ever deeper. Like me, all sense of direction and perspective distorted, out of control and happy to remain like that.
I said, ‘I never dream about you.’ She frowned, as I pressed on, ‘No sumptuous, sensuous visions when I sleep. None of that, I just think about you every waking minute.’