Stone Cold Red Hot

by Cath Staincliffe

  “Probably be a couple of hours before anything gets going,” he said, “Mr Brennan likes to get a few jars down him before he starts picking a fight.”

  “Does he live on the Close?”

  “At the end, him and Whittaker, they’ve the houses either side of the alley at the bottom. It’s been hell up here these last couple of years.”

  “They told me there’ve been a lot of complaints.”

  “That’s right. Even though most people are afraid to say anything - scared that there’ll be comeback if they do. You can’t blame them, especially the young ones with kiddies. Leastways I’ve only myself to worry about. Come on down I’ll make you a cuppa tea.”

  He pointed out the toilet and bathroom on the way downstairs, “Help yourself, whenever you need.”

  His kitchen had never been modernised and some of the items, like the fifties dresser with its sliding frosted glass doors, were collectors items now for those into retro and kitsch. He made the tea slowly, methodically and we took the drinks into the lounge.

  “So how did you come to be doing this?” he asked. “Private investigator.”

  “Enterprise Allowance Scheme.”

  He guffawed. “I heard of people setting up painting and decorating that way and catering but they let you do that?”

  “Oh, there were all sorts,” I said, “a juggler and an interior designer. I think the strangest of my lot was a snake breeder.” I thought back to the training sessions; lectures on self-employment, VAT and tax. A motley group of us, out of work but full of schemes and dreams.

  “You got money on top of your benefit?”

  “Yeah. Forty quid a week for a year, then sink or swim. They reckoned two-thirds of us would sink.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Near thing sometimes though.”

  “They don’t have that now,” he said.

  The steam from the tea misted my glasses, something I wasn’t used to. I pulled back and they cleared. “I can’t keep track,” I said.

  “Seems to be going the American way; welfare to work, cutting people’s money if they won’t take a job. I can’t see as how it’s going to make anything better, not round here. Folks aren’t going to be any better off, doing a dead-end job for the same money as the dole, that’s not going to change people’s futures, is it?”

  I shrugged, probably not. And there but for the grace of god...

  “And what about these single parents?” He persisted. “Some lasses round here have two and three kiddies, they’re looking after them best as they can, and it’s hard for some of them, I can tell you. And now the government wants them to go out to work and pay someone else to mind their children. They might want to mind them themselves. Ought to pay them to do it. That’s what my wife used to say - raising a family is work and it ought to be accounted for.”

  But meanwhile? I thought. I drank my tea. “Some of them might want the chance to work,” I said.

  “All power to them,” he said. “But if we go down the road of pushing people into jobs they don’t want; that or starve. That’s not what we set up the Welfare State for,” his voice shook and got louder, “we wanted to protect the most vulnerable - for the good of us all. Create a strong society. Give people the basics, decent housing, decent food, healthcare when they need it, everyone paying in, everyone benefits. Common interest, if we lose sight of that...” He broke off, rubbed his face with his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said, “on my soap-box, hard habit to break.”

  Shouting from outside startled both of us. I went and pulled aside the curtain. A crowd of youths were on the pavement, five of them. Two were leaning against my car. They were laughing and joking. Mr Poole joined me, he took off his glasses and screwed up his eyes.

  “The two with ginger hair, on the car,” he said, “they’re Brennan’s twins, can’t tell ‘em apart. I don’t know the two in the middle and the lanky one on the right is Micky Whittaker.”

  He had a shaved head and a pattern marked on his scalp. “What’s that on his head?”

  “A tattoo, bulldog.”

  “His father is mixed up with some neo Nazi group.”

  “Yes and his father gave his life fighting the fascists. Died in Malaya, and now sonny boy’s running round celebrating Hitler’s birthday.” Contempt riddled his voice.

  “I’d better get them off the car,” I said. “I pulled my coat back on and Mr Poole followed me to the door. I opened it and called out. “Can you get off the car, please.”

  Jeers and catcalls. One of the twins mimicked me, “Can you get off the car, please,” and the other echoed him.

  “Needs scrapping,” Micky Whittaker kicked a tyre with his boot. “We can do it for yer, you’ll get the insurance.”

  I resisted joining in the banter and repeated my request.

  “We’re not hurting it,” said one of the twins “are we?” he turned to the others.

  “No,” they chorused.

  “Get off the car.”

  “Alright, alright,” said the other twin.

  “She’s shitting herself,” one of them sniggered.

  My cheeks burned but I tried not to react.

  “Come on, lads,” Mr Poole’s voice was hard but not threatening.

  “Alright, grandad, who’s yer visitor?”

  He took a step down and went to the gate. “She’s my niece, up from London and her auntie is poorly in the hospital so I’d appreciate a bit of peace and quiet while she’s staying here, OK?”

  There were shuffles and sniggers and a soft “‘kin‘ell” from one of them as they shambled off down the road.

  Chapter seven

  Half an hour later the motorbike I’d seen on arriving became the focus for some excitement. The driver roared it up and down the Close screeching to a halt at the bottom where the gang had congregated.

  I told Mr Poole that I’d film some of this for the record.

  “If you need anything,” he said, “just give us a yell. I’ll be in the back room,” he gestured in that direction.

  “What time do you go to bed?” I felt slightly foolish asking but I didn’t want to disturb him.

  “Oh, I’ll be up till you’re done.”

  “Are you sure, it’ll be after two?”

  “I only need a couple of hours these days,” he said, “don’t worry about me.”

  I went upstairs and shut the door so no light would spill into the room. I settled myself in my niche. I filmed ten minutes of antics with the motorbike and managed to get close-ups of each of the lads. The main aim of the game seemed to be revving it up as hard as possible then racing up the Close and squealing to a halt with a skid. There weren’t any girls hanging about. I wondered what they were doing while their boyfriends and brothers played Easy Rider.

  There was no sign of life at all from the Ibrahims. I couldn’t tell if the lights were on in the house, all the curtains were drawn and no-one came or went. Things were quiet for a while apart from the sound of a child wailing and two dogs barking a duet. A plane took off overhead, we weren’t far from the airport. When it had climbed out of sight and the sound had faded I could only hear the child crying.

  Later there was a burst of thumping music from a car passing on the main road. A man walked past with a small, Scottish terrier on a lead. The dog stopped and squatted, left a turd on the pavement. The man waited, no sign of concern about him. I should have filmed him, I thought to myself, sent it in somewhere and got him fined. Dog fouling seemed to have reached epidemic proportions in Manchester, every trip to the park followed by cleaning up the kids shoes with an old toothbrush and disinfectant. Horrible.

  A woman pushing a buggy came from the bottom of the Close. Out late or walking round trying to get the baby to sleep?

  I was getting stiff and the wig was driving me mad. I took it off and scratched my head furiously, plonked it back on. I was starting to feel drowsy too. Reckoned I needed a caffeine boost. I’d brought a snack with me too, cheese butty and a slab of fla
pjack. I’d have those, stoke myself up.

  The door to Mr Poole’s back room was ajar. I knocked and went in.

  “Wow!” It was like a library or a social history museum, books lined three walls, the fourth displayed posters and banners from past campaigns. Ban the Bomb, Support Nalgo, Victory to The Miners. A large table in the centre of the room was stacked with magazines, papers and more books. Mr Poole sat at the table in a high-backed chair.

  “My study.”

  “You’ve quite a collection.”

  “Yes, it’ll go to the Mechanics Institute when I’m gone. Lot of these are originals, out of print now. And the pamphlets and leaflets, can’t get them anywhere else. I’m still cataloguing the more recent material.”

  “How’ve you got hold of it all?”

  “Well, I’ve kept the items that have come my way, through the union, been a shop steward all my life when I was in work. And things from the Tenants and then the different campaigns and such like. The rest people have passed on to me, knowing I’d a collection.” I thought of Lisa MacNeice with her hens.

  “One chap I knew, Archie Ferguson, he was a big man in the unions at Ferranti. Well, Archie died last year and his wife Betty rang me.”

  “‘George,’ she says, ‘I’ve half-a-dozen boxes here, Archie’s papers and he wanted you to have them.’ I got round there and she’s got a room full. He kept everything - minutes going back forty years, notices of meetings, old rule books, correspondence. I could have filled a ship with it. Well, I found what was worth keeping, and that took some doing, mind you, and I told her to get the scouts to take the rest for their paper collections.”

  I smiled. “I’d like to get a cup of coffee.”

  “I’ll do it,” he pulled himself up.

  “I don’t mind,” I volunteered, if you show me where you keep everything.”

  “I’ll show you now and then if you need anything later you know what’s what.”

  Back in my viewing position I sipped coffee and demolished my snack. I felt an initial wave of fatigue as all the blood rushed to my stomach. I stretched and yawned and fooled around with the camera a bit. It was dark now, the scene illuminated in moody orange from the streetlights.

  Two cars drove down the Close at high speed. People spilled out at the bottom. There was a lot of shouting and snatches of a song. “Engerland, Eng-er-land.” I felt my spine tense. I wondered whether Mrs Ahmed was listening too, waiting for the trouble to begin.

  The group walked up the street and gathered on the pavement outside the Ibrahims’. I began to film. There were six in all. The twins and Micky Whittaker were there and another teenager, seriously overweight and with a shaved head. I filmed the group and the scene before cutting in for close-ups. It was obvious who the men were, they closely resembled their offspring: Mr Brennan, balding with thin patches of flame coloured hair, short, stocky, grinning a lot; his accomplice Whittaker, tall and stooping with lank, shoulder length hair and a thin moustache. He wore a denim jacket and torn jeans and looked as if he was freezing. He shivered frequently, stood with his shoulders hunched, arms crossed, hands tucked under his armpits.

  A joint was passing round and the Whittaker boy passed round cans of super-strong lager. One of the twins sprayed the other with foam and got cuffed across the face by his father who screeched at him. “Don’t waste it, yer fuckin’ pillock.”

  The teenagers glugged at the cans, toked on the joint. They moved closer to the house. Then in turn they ran up and hammered on the door, screaming and shouting. After a minute or two they’d swap places, like a sick relay race. The men began to sing a dirge; “Go home, go home, fuck off, go home...” to the tune of Amazing Grace. As the ditty finished they broke into a fast chant, obscene and racist. I caught fragments, I didn’t know how much the microphone on the camera would pick up, enough I hoped. “Coons and wogs, they eat dogs, ay allez oop...”

  I hated them. I wanted to silence them, kick their stupid, racist heads in. Not a civilised response, I know, just a gut reaction.

  Next time, if there had to be a next time, I’d leave the window ajar to catch more of what they were saying.

  I heard a movement behind me - Mr Poole opening the door. He’d had the sense to turn the landing light out.

  “I’ve spotted Brennan and the twins and Whittaker and his boy. There’s another lad as well, shaved head, overweight?”

  “Bunter, that’s what they call him. Darren is his real name. He lives next door but one. He’s a bit slow. They lead him on, that lot, take advantage of him and he gets into trouble. He doesn’t understand half of what’s going on - just wants to be part of the gang. Grown men.” I heard him sigh. “What, on god’s earth, makes them do this?” Frustration strained his voice.

  The songs and the chants went on, more cans were consumed. The empty ones were hurled at the house, the group cheered whenever a window was hit. They repeatedly went up and kicked the front door.

  “I’m going to ring the police now,” I said to Mr Poole, “I don’t want it to get any worse.”

  It took the police twenty minutes to arrive. In the meantime I filmed Darren peeing against the Ibrahim’s door, egged on by the others who cheered when he’d finished. I was shaking, my teeth gritted shut. Where was Mrs Ahmed and her three children? Settled in the kitchen as far as possible from the threats at the front? Could she get the children off to sleep and sit and listen alone? Or did she put the telly on to drown them out; try and follow the stories from the images, the babble of English hard for her to understand? Did the shouts and thumps bring back the horrors she had lived through in Somalia, swamping her with fear making her hands shake and her mouth dry? How did she cope?

  “Get a chair next time,” yelled Brennan, “do it through the letterbox.”

  “She might suck it for yer,” roared Whittaker.

  The group howled with laughter. The twins made wanking motions with their fists. Where were the bloody police?

  At last the squad car appeared and as it drove down the Close the gang became quiet. They moved nearer together, ribaldry over.

  The police got out of the car. I kept filming. Brennan greeted one of them by name. “Alright, Benny.” He said there’d been reports of a disturbance. Innocent faces were pulled.

  “Carl Benson,” Mr Poole whispered, referring to the younger policeman, “local lad.”

  “I live on here,” said Brennan, “this is my street. Can’t a man walk down his own street?”

  “Free country, innit?” asked Whittaker. “Used to be anyway, till we were swamped by immigrants, taking houses and jobs.”

  “Come on, now, time for home,” said the other policeman.

  “Why, eh? Why?” Brennan was all outrage, hands spread wide. “We haven’t done nothing, this is harassment, this is.”

  There was no reply. The police stood there. Implacable but not looking half as hard as the men they faced.

  It was Whittaker who gave the signal at last. “Freezin’ out here anyway. Funny smell an’ all. Like a farmyard.” One of the twins snorted. I saw Carl Benson’s face tighten, his adam’s apple bob.

  “Got a dirty movie back at the house, few more cans.” They began to walk away.

  “Darren?” A woman’s voice calling. “Darren, come on now.” Darren’s face fell, he turned away from the group, rolled his shoulders in an embarrassed shrug.

  “Go on, Bunter,” teased Micky Whittaker, “beddy-byes.”

  The police stood and watched until the group had gone into the houses at the bottom of the Close. The older man got in the car. Carl Benson crossed to Mr Poole’s. We went downstairs and Mr Poole let him in. I confirmed that I’d called the police and told him what I’d seen, he noted it all down in his book. I explained that I was video-recording events for a possible court case - it was all on tape. Yes, I would be happy to be a witness if required.

  “It’s Carl, isn’t it?” Mr Poole said.

  “Yeah,” he blushed a little.

  “How’s
your Mum doing?”

  “Alright, they’ve put a ramp in now and a downstairs bathroom. It’s a lot better.”

  “‘Bout time and all. Give her my regards.”

  “Yeh, right. Best be off.”

  “Glad it was them,” said Mr Poole as we returned to the kitchen. “There’s one copper round here and all he ever wanted to do was race round in fast cars - now he does it for a living - like the Sweeney. If he wasn’t a copper he’d be a villain.”

  “It’s possible to be both at the same time.”

  “Aye and he probably is. But Carl’s a good lad.”

  I left Mr Poole to his filing and went back upstairs.

  I was tired now, just a couple of hours to go until Mr Ibrahim was due back. Precious little happening. A couple more dog walkers. I yawned a lot and did some more stretching.

  At twenty past two a private hire cab arrived and stopped outside the house opposite. A man got out; dark coat and hat, moustache. Mr Ibrahim, I presumed. He knocked on the door. I realised they probably used bolts as well as locks so she’d have to let him in. The door opened and he slipped through. I caught no glimpse of her. The taxi drove away.

  Time for home.

  I packed up the camcorder and cleared the bits into my bag. Downstairs I looked in on Mr Poole. He was still at his table but sitting back in the large, upholstered chair. Eyes closed, mouth open, snoring softly. With each snore the loose skin around his chin shivered. I went across and touched his shoulder.

  “Mr Poole? I’m going now.”

  He blinked a few times and shut his mouth; rubbed his face with his hand.

  “I’ll see myself out. Don’t forget to ring me whenever there’s any bother. Goodnight.”

  The roads were quiet driving home. Once I’d gone a little way I took the wig and glasses off. I wondered whether the footage I’d got would be enough for Mandy Bellows to take the troublemakers to court. Surely it would.