Born Under Punches

by Martyn Waites

  Louise leaned over to the bedside table, lit up a Silk Cut. ‘So,’ she said, ‘what shall we do today?’

  Tony’s hand moved over her nipple, squeezed. ‘More of the same?’

  She took a drag. ‘After that.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Shit!’ Louise sat suddenly upright. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Uh … twenty to eleven. Why?’

  She jumped out of bed and made for the wardrobe. ‘I need to ask you a really big favour,’ she said, pulling underwear from a drawer, a jumper from a shelf.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need you to disappear.’

  Tony looked at her.

  ‘Just for an hour or so.’ She turned to face him, pulling her pants on at the same time. She looked apprehensive. ‘Please. Just for an hour. Then you’ve got me for the rest of the day. Please?’

  Tony’s eyes took in her full breasts, trailed down to her flattened waist, wandered down over her slightly rounded tummy, imagined her soft, dark pubic hair now covered by the stretch cotton of her briefs. The rest of the day, he thought. ‘Yeah. Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. I wouldn’t ask, but this, is important. You’ll have to go.’

  Tony got reluctantly out of bed and began to dress.

  ‘Thanks, Tony. Go for a walk round Saltwell Park or something. I’ll make it up. I promise.’

  Tommy entered the clubhouse, scoped the room. He saw moneyed, middle-aged straights, abandoned wives martinied up, no one he knew. In the far corner a group of men and women, about the same age as himself, sat drinking, smoking and talking. Their conversation was animated, their circle closed. A girl in the group detached her attention from the others, made eye contact with him. She was brown-haired, very attractive. Tommy returned the look just as someone spoke to her, pulling her attention back into the group.

  ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’. Still number one. Still playing.

  He looked away, walked to the bar, pointed to the whisky optic, paid, sat and began to drink. Suddenly he wasn’t alone. As if on cue, a blonde girl took the stool next to him. Stylishly dressed, well made up, she looked as out of place as Tommy did.

  ‘Tommy?’ she asked, her voice elocuted Geordie.

  Tommy nodded.

  ‘Mr Fairbairn says you’re doing a good job.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve got a reward for you.’

  Tommy smiled. He downed his drink in one, got up and left with the blonde, knowing that the girl from the group in the corner was watching him go.

  Outside, both the BMW and the sun were still shining as they drove away. As the blonde’s hand began to snake around his thigh, Tommy smiled. He was going to enjoy his day off.

  *

  The same sharp, autumn sunlight stretched from Ponteland golf course to Saltwell Park in Gateshead. Tony walked slowly through the park. Children enjoyed the playground next to disconsolate bunches of sneering adolescents. Families and couples alongside Sunday fathers with their kids. Sparrows and squirrels in front of the caged birds in the aviary. Everywhere was contrasts, choices. He thought of his own.

  He had left school with two things: a passion for football and a determination to get out of Coldwell as quickly, and by whatever means, as possible. There were two traditional industries in Coldwell: the mine and the docks. Not wanting to spend his life in darkness, discomfort and disease, Tony had taken a job on one of the piers. The number of working piers, few to start with, had become fewer and fewer, the car-goes smaller and smaller. He had begun to realize there was no such thing as a job for life any more and that something had to happen.

  It did.

  A talent scout for Newcastle United spotted him playing in a local Sunday-league side and asked if he would be interested in a trial. He took it, impressed them and, through hard work and perseverance, jumped from the under-seventeen team, to the reserves, to the first team bench. The goal against Arsenal had been his first at the top level. He didn’t intend it to be his last.

  However, yesterday’s defeat away to Everton was a different matter. Newcastle were two–nil down by the time Tony was sent on. He had been completely ineffectual, even personally contributing to Everton’s third goal.

  Big Jack’s bollocking came soon afterwards: his concentration and focus were lacking; his skill nowhere to be seen; if he wanted a career as a top-flight footballer, he would have to do much better than that. Tony had listened, shrugged, said he’d sort it out during the week.

  But Tony had been living in terror all week. The business with Neil and Tommy Jobson had scared the shit out of him, got him looking over his shoulder, staying out of the shadows, keeping in company. He had to think, find a way to square things and walk away without getting hurt. Let his past die.

  Then there was Louise. She scared him too, but in a different way, a good way. He had thought about her all week, talked to her on the phone, was impatient to be with her again. She was starting to mean something to him. He didn’t want to screw things up with her. If he could sort the thing out with Tommy, then concentrate on his football and. Louise, things would be fine.

  Coach back to Newcastle, couple of lines to calm and sharpen him, off to meet Louise in the Barley Mow on the quayside. Not the sort of place Tony normally went to, but not one that Tommy Jobson would be looking for him in either.

  Louise had been standing with her friends, knocking back drinks and unwanted advances. He felt a sudden rush of warmth knowing she was waiting for him. She saw him, her eyes lit up and virtually all his fear evaporated.

  They began to talk and it seemed that the rest of the bar was gradually disappearing. At closing time, Louise’s friends moved on Madisons.

  ‘So where d’you want to go?’ Tony had asked her.

  Louise had smiled. ‘How about Gateshead?’

  Tony swallowed. ‘Are you sure? You don’t think you’re rushing things?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Tony glanced at his watch. His hour was up, so he turned round and made his way back to Louise’s.

  As he rounded the corner of Coatsworth Road he saw Louise standing on the doorstep outside her flat. By her was a small, sandy-haired young man and parked at the kerb an aged but well-maintained pale green Ford Escort Mark One. Tony felt a sharp stab of jealousy, but Louise’s posture – folded arms, erect back – helped dispel that. The other man, shoulders slumped, spine – or at least spirit – bent, stuck his hands out as if imploring her. Louise shook her head. The man climbed into the Escort, slammed the door, over-revved the engine and drove away.

  Tony approached Louise and, although he had a fair idea of what had been going on, asked her about it.

  ‘Remember when we met I told you I was seeing someone?’ Louise was staring down the street after the departing car.

  Tony nodded.

  ‘Well, I’m not any more. Keith’s gone.’ She turned to face him. ‘Sorry about earlier.’ She sighed. ‘But you’ve got me all to yourself now.’

  Tony placed his arms around her. ‘Good.’

  Louise smiled. ‘Let’s go inside.’

  Tony smiled back. That was one less thing they had to discuss.

  Tommy came, lying flat on his back on the bed in his spartan flat in Wallsend with the blonde girl, who had given her name as Cathy, naked and straddling him.

  When she had milked the last spasm from his body, she smiled and dismounted. She hadn’t come. Tommy hadn’t offered. They both knew the rules.

  Cathy made her way to the bathroom. Tommy heard the sound of the shower and sighed. It had been difficult getting aroused at first, despite Cathy’s efforts. It wasn’t until he imagined her as Kim Novak and him as smooth, suave Dino putting one over on that blind, black Jew Sammy that he let the mood take him.

  All those years in care homes, foster homes, lashing out at anyone and everything with undirected anger, no control. Then, by chance, he heard the voice. Sinatra. ‘In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning’. And something spoke to him, directly. It summed up the pain,
the loss, the melancholy he had kept locked up inside since he was little. He bought the record and anything else he could find. That led him to Dino. Even better, the total epitome of couldn’t-give-a-fuck cool. And then there were the suits. Ratpack-sharp, but with such style, such attitude. From that moment on, he knew what he wanted to be. He sighed. Dino and Frank. They had always been there for him. Better parents than his real ones had been. Wherever they were.

  Then there was Clive Fairbairn. Everyone knew Clive Fairbairn. On the surface an Empire-loving, old-school, likeable rogue, only hurting his own sort, kind to his old mum, do anything for kids’ charities. Just a dodgily honest businessman dealing in casinos and gaming machines. Underneath, a different story. Fairbairn was hard. Hardware, hardcore porn. He dealt with it all. Apart from the prostitution and protection rackets, he imported decommissioned military hardware from the Soviet Union and pornography of all kinds, even snuff and kiddie porn. He had the north-east sewn up.

  Although much more intelligent than his children’s home contemporaries, Tommy had enjoyed the same games, especially twoccing. He had been working for a chop shop in Gateshead, picking up and delivering cars to order. Although the money was good and he had done over two hundred, he was starting to find the work boring. He had gone as far as he could. He needed to move up. He needed Clive Fairbairn.

  Fairbairn had a sociopathic ability to generate money for himself and his associates, unhindered by morality or ethics. A perfect, feral capitalist. But there was one area Fairbairn knew nothing about but still wanted a cut of: hard drugs. It was becoming a booming market but he just couldn’t get to grips with it. He had supply routes sorted but severe distribution problems. That fact Chinese-whispered its way. to Tommy. He needed a plan, something to get Fairbairn’s attention.

  So Tommy stole his Jag. From the car park of a casino owned by Fairbairn. Fairbairn went ballistic – a huge cash reward for whoever found it, a slow, torturous death for whoever had taken it. No one owned up.

  Three days later it turned up outside Fairbairn’s house in Ponteland, cleaned, valeted, with a full tank of petrol and a note in the glove box reading ‘You can use a man like me’ followed by a phone number.

  Fairbairn had phoned the number. Give me one good reason why I don’t break your fucking back, he had said.

  Tommy, letting the spirit of Dino control his stutter, had told him: ‘You need someone like me on your side.’

  They arranged to meet, and Fairbairn had found himself being impressed by the sharp-suited seventeen-year-old. Tommy talked about the streets, about drugs. He talked himself up as the perfect man to run distribution. Fairbairn had checked him out, taken him on. But I’m not going to forget what you did to my car, Mr Fairbairn said. Don’t make me remind you.

  That was six months ago. Tommy was working his way up Fairbairn’s organization. Almost to the top of the pyramid and only eighteen. And doing it with such style.

  Cathy came out of the bathroom, bent to slip on her shoes. She stood up.

  ‘D’you want me to hang around?’ she asked. ‘You’ve got me for the day, if you want.’

  Tommy shook his head. He didn’t like other people staying in his flat for too long.

  Cathy smiled. ‘Mind, you don’t say much, do you?’ She reached into her bag, took out a card, laid it on the bed. ‘It’s been fun,’ she said, her voice brittle-bright. ‘If you want to see me again—’ she dropped her eyes in a well-practised gesture of fake seduction ‘—call that number.’ She walked out, closing the door behind her.

  Tommy lay on the bed, staring out of the window at the blue sky.

  It won’t be dark for hours yet, he thought.

  Tony drove, Louise sat beside him, Aztec Camera provided the laid-back Sunday-afternoon soundtrack and they talked and talked.

  Louise was from Grimley, a small town on the way to Chester-le-Street. ‘Well, a street with houses behind it, actually,’ she explained. Her family were working class, she was at college doing business studies, she shared a flat with Rachel, another student, her older brother Stephen was trying to make a name for himself as a journalist.

  Tony’s turn, and he told her that he too was from a working-class background; his father had been a miner until he was invalided out. ‘One lungful of dust too many,’ he said. He had a brother still at school who hopefully wouldn’t have to. ‘Mind, with the strike and everything, it looks like he’s not even going to get the chance.’ He told her he had just bought himself a flat in a new development in Ponteland.

  ‘Is that where we’re headed now?’ she asked.

  Tony smiled. After making love on his return from Saltwell Park they had decided to go for a drive. ‘Not yet,’ he said with a smile. ‘I thought I’d show you round a bit first.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Start with my old home town. Coldwell.’

  They drove down the main street. The town looked deserted.

  ‘You’d think they’d dropped the bomb and evacuated the place,’ said Louise.

  ‘It’s always like this,’ replied Tony. ‘No one here goes out on a Sunday. Day of rest.’

  Louise thought of Sunday afternoons back at her parents’ house. Harry Secombe’s Highway, Jim Bowen’s Bullseye. ‘I’ve always found that kind of thing depressing.’

  Tony nodded in agreement.

  Louise put Coldwell at about the same size as Gateshead. Although clearly not a prosperous town, it seemed tidy enough, civically well maintained. Lampposts, walls, boarded-up shop windows and advertising hoardings bore the familiar legend, ‘Coal, Not Dole’. She had seen the posters often enough, the miners and their supporters rattling their buckets by Grey’s Monument in Newcastle, people walking around with stickers on their lapels, but this was the first time she had ever visited an area directly affected by the strike. She kept looking at the streets. Coldwell didn’t just seem quiet, she decided; it felt like the town was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. Like a medieval fortress under siege, waiting for some robber-baron’s armies to attack.

  ‘What do you think about the strike?’ Tony asked her.

  ‘I think they’ve got a point,’ she replied. ‘But I think they have to be honest. The coal’s not going to last for ever. It has to run out sometime.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Tony, not taking his eyes off the road, the streets. ‘This was one of the mines the government wanted closed. But my dad said it was making a profit.’

  ‘So why close it?’

  Tony gave a bitter smile. ‘Politics. Them down there don’t like us up here.’

  Louise smiled uncertainly. ‘D’you really believe that?’

  Tony shrugged. ‘Dunno. Probably. I just wish my dad had had somewhere else to work, that’s all.’

  They drove without speaking. Roddy Frame singing about the knife whose twists were cruel and hopeless, how neglect had worn it thin.

  ‘Hey,’ said Tony. ‘You hungry? D’you fancy a drink?’

  Louise did.

  ‘Come on, then.’

  They drove to a pub in Seaton Sluice with a view of the coastline stretching from St Mary’s lighthouse to the Cambois power station. They just made the lunchtime deadline, Tony ordering fish and chips for both of them, since the pub was famous for that. As they settled into their booth, Louise looked around. She stopped dead, drink frozen on the way to her mouth, eyes locked.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Tony.

  ‘There’s our Stephen,’ she replied. ‘Me brother.’

  Tony looked around to where she was pointing. He saw three men sitting at a table; one older, two younger. One of the younger ones was wearing a faded Levi jacket and matching 501s, a black T-shirt and brown DMs. His dark hair was short at the back and the sides with sideburns and a gelled quiff. He was talking animatedly in an intense, serious manner. He looked, to Tony, like that dickhead from the Smiths.

  ‘Him there?’ asked Tony.

  ‘Yeah. Let’s say hello,’ said Louise.

&nb
sp; She led him by the hand across the pub to where the three men were sitting, deep in discussion. As they approached, the older man looked up and Tony knew he’d been recognized.

  ‘Hiya, stranger,’ said Louise, her face beaming.

  Stephen Larkin looked up, clearly annoyed at being interrupted. When he saw who it was, his annoyance gave way to surprise. ‘Louise. What you doin’ here?’

  ‘Just having some lunch,’ she replied. She linked her arm around Tony’s. ‘This is Tony.’ She looked at him. ‘He’s me new boyfriend.’

  The smile and the look she gave him, the words she said, gave Tony a good feeling inside.

  ‘Hello, Tony,’ said Larkin. He gestured to the two men with him. ‘This is Dougie an’ this is Mick. They’re leadin’ the strike in Coldwell. I’m writin’ about it. Helpin’ where I can.’ He spoke with the kind of intensity Tony expected.

  They all nodded to each other. An embarrassed silence descended on them. The older man broke it.

  ‘Are you Pat’s lad?’ he said to Tony. ‘Ian’s young ‘un?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Tony, ‘that’s me.’

  ‘You’re doin’ a grand job. Keep gannin’, son. You’re bringin’ a bit o’ pride to us.’ The man smiled. ‘Howay the lads.’

  Tony laughed, blushed slightly. ‘Thanks. I’ll try to. Well,’ he said, ‘they’ll be bringin’ our dinners over soon. We’ll leave you in peace. Nice to meet you.’

  They said their relieved goodbyes, Tony and Louise retreating to their table.

  ‘Nice, isn’t he?’ Louise asked.

  Tony looked across to where her brother had resumed his conversation with the two men. The one who had spoken looked over and smiled. Tony smiled back. Louise’s brother was talking as if he’d forgotten he had ever been interrupted.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tony.

  Their fish and chips arrived and they ate, talking and laughing their way through the meal.

  ‘So,’ said Tony once they had finished their meals and had another drink, ‘what d’you want to do now?’