‘Hoy,’ I yells. ‘Who’s there?’
The head moved back so I couldn’t see it. But I had seen it, hadn’t I. So I kicked the panel with me good foot and yelled again. Didn’t see no reason not to. I were fucked, far as I could see. And this feller up front couldn’t be one of the Muntons, being as I hadn’t heard Lee and Jess get back in. And if it weren’t a Munton…well, I didn’t rightly know what. But it were someone, weren’t it?
‘Hey, answer us, fuck sake. I’m Royston Blake, head doorman of—’
‘I knows who you are,’ comes back a bird’s voice. A familiar one, like all voices are in the Mangel area. And then a face loomed up t’other side of the mucky glass. It were so close I couldn’t make much of it out. But I knew who she were all right. ‘An’ I knows what yer job is. An’…oh, just shut up.’
You ain’t meant to yell or curse at birds. Not even when they does same to you. Not even when you’re hurting and locked in the back of the Meat Wagon and she’s up front all warm and smug. It’s one of them things separates us from the monkeys, so they says. And I happens to agree. So when I spoke I did so in a calm and reasonable manner. ‘Now, Mandy,’ I says. ‘I dunno just what you’re doin’ up yonder. Seems to me you oughtn’t to be there, bein’ as the last time I seen you, you was—’
‘Just shut up, Blake.’ She were sitting back in the driver’s seat again so I couldn’t see her. But her voice came from not two feet away. ‘I heared all about what you done. The less said the better, far as I sees it.’
‘Woss you heared? Whatever it is, Mand, I tells you it ain’t true. It weren’t—’
‘Woss you done? Woss you done, you says? You killed my brother. Killed little Barry an’…an’ all I can say is I’m glad Lee and Jess picked me up on the road to Furzel. I’m glad cos now I gets to drive you out to Hurk Wood meself.’
‘Hurk Wood? But, Mand, what about all that stuff we talked about?’
‘What stuff?’
‘You know, in the lock-up there. Over in Norbert Green.’
‘What did we talk about?’
‘Oh, come on. You remembers.’
‘What? You come on.’
‘You know…stuff.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well all right. I don’t rightly recall what particular words was said. But—’
‘Well there’s yer answer then, ennit. It ain’t important enough to recall.’
‘Mand, come on, girl. Let us out an I’ll…’ To be honest I weren’t sure what I’d do if she let us out. And while I were thinking of summat the back doors swung open and the van filled up with cold air.
‘Company for you,’ says Lee as he and Jess heaved Legs into the van. Legs were unconscious or thereabouts, and the heaving weren’t coming easy on Jess’s side. But Lee bore the brunt, and after a bit they got the whole of Legs in and slammed the doors once again. Then they climbed up front and started her up.
Legs lay where he’d fell for a long while. I thought about getting up and having a go at kicking him to death, him being the cause of all this and all. But what were the point of that? We was both fucked. No use bickering now. So I ignored him and closed me eyes and tried to shut my brain off.
I normally finds it easy to do that, long as there’s nothing to distract us. But there were a grating noise coming from somewhere and it were fucking annoying. Legs were sat still, so it couldn’t be him. I looked around and saw the tarp. It were rubbing against itself as the van rocked this way and that. It were getting cold in there, and I wondered about stretching some of that tarp over us blanket-like. But nothing came of such thinking. No point having warm legs when I were about to cark it, were there?
Suddenly the van swerved hard left, sending us arse over. My back hit the front panel and I fell down on the tarp. I pushed meself up off of it, noting with interest that it weren’t just a tarp after all. Summat were in it. Summat soft and hard at same time. Just like folks is soft and hard at same time.
That and the van swerving to the right just then made us fall over. I landed on my arse back where I’d been sat. A bit of the tarp had come away at one end, revealing what looked to be a shiny black shoe.
‘Who the fuck is in there?’ says Legsy.
The van went over a huge pothole a bit fast, sending the tarp in the air. When it came down a dead feller popped out, his big right arm lopped off and strapped upside his body. He lay there staring at us, face lit up grey by dim moonlight through the greasy little window, same dopey look on his face as when I’d tried to run him down outside Hoppers just now.
‘Who the fuck is that?’ says Legsy again, voice all high-pitched and womanish now.
‘Outsider, ennit,’ I says. ‘Reckons he’s a doorman. Serves him fucking right, you asks me. Called us a turnip, he did.’
I sniffed and wiped me nose. Road were getting rougher under us, which had my arse slamming up and down on the metal floor. We’d be going into the woods now, driving slow up the dirt track. I weren’t scared. You’d reckon I would be, this being the end. But you know what? I couldn’t give a toss.
The Meat Wagon stopped. Legs were looking at us. Some light were getting in from somewhere, showing his eyes up as all wet and glistening. ‘Blake,’ he says, voice cracking. ‘I loves you.’
Well, I didn’t very well know what to say to that. Ain’t the sort of thing one feller says to another, is it. But I reckon he were cacking himself a bit so I had to make allowances. I opened me gob to say, ‘You’re all right, mate,’ but the door opened just then and a lovely cool breeze rushed in and took the words away.
Jess’s movements was different. Didn’t seem so doped up now. He came in first, waving the fucking chainsaw about like a fucking tennis racket.
Lee came in behind him holding a shotgun.
Legs started crying.
Jess laughed.
Lee grinned and slapped his brother on the shoulder. Then he slammed the door and grinned at us all. He kicked the dead feller aside and sat atop on him. ‘Got a job for you,’ he says, looking at me. ‘If you ain’t too busy.’
Jess laughed again. Then he put the chainsaw on the floor in front of us.
Lee got a sawn-off out of his coat and passed it him. He nodded at Susan and looked at me. ‘Pick her up.’
She were heavier than I’d reckoned her to be. And up close she stank. It were the same whiff as the rest of the Meat Wagon, only more so. ‘Why?’ I says.
Lee pointed the gun at me face. ‘Go on, start up Susan.’
I touched the chord. It were damp and greasy. She started first time.
‘Wha—’ I heard Legs say, but the rest were drowned out. He shut up when Jess smacked him across the back of the head with the sawn-off. His lips said, ‘Ow’, and his arm went up as he started to turn.
Jess got him again, bang on his left ear hole.
Legs went down cold this time.
Susan were roaring an gnashing her teeth. Lee’s knees were a couple of feet away at most. While I were thinking about that, he stepped back and aimed the gun more closely at my head. Jess aimed at us and all. They’d have had my head sprayed across the panel before I could reach em with the chainsaw. And it were too heavy to lob. They’d shoot me arms off anyhow if I tried.
Jess squatted and pointed at Legsy’s throat. Then he mimed like he were bringing Susan down on it, all the way to the floor. He got up, swinging an invisible head from his hand by the hair.
I shook my head. Thoughts was coming into it that I didn’t much care for. Had no space for em, did I. Not here, in the Meat Wagon. I were thinking about when I used to go up Legsy’s flat and moan about Beth. He never started it. It were always me, cracking a tin open and shaking my head and telling him how he ought never to get wedded. Or if he did, choose a bit more careful than I did.
Lee were shouting summat. It were hard to hear. He were waving the gun around and kicking Legs and spraying flob all over us.
I hadn’t always slagged her off, mind. When me and Beth was new
ly-weds I couldn’t stop talking her up. Specially to Legs. I’d tell him what she could do, how her body felt, what noises she made, how she liked it, what her tricks was. Maybe it weren’t right to say all that, looking back. Maybe, if I hadn’t, things’d be all right now.
Lee raised the gun a couple of inches and fired. Buckshot raked across me scalp. Blood trickled down my forehead into me eyebrows and gathered in em like a couple of thunder clouds. A blast of cool air came through the new hole behind us. Jess lowered his gun and aimed between my legs. I reckoned this were it.
I walked toward Legs. I knelt beside him. Cold metal pushed into the back of me neck. Hot stinking breath bellowed in my ear: ‘Chop his block off.’ I looked at Susan. She were massive. And if I held her like so her blade blotted out Legsy’s face. I brung her down close, close to…
‘Chop his block off.’
Legsy’s eyes was shut. Didn’t look like they’d ever be open again. Maybe Jess’d knocked him too hard just now with the sawn-off and killed him. Maybe it wouldn’t matter so much if I…
The blunt barrel of Jess’s sawn-off prodded against my stretched trousers from underneath, right on me tightening knacker sack. The clouds burst above my eyes, filling em with blood. Legsy were a mate. All right, we had a few problems. But he had shagged me missus, hadn’t he.
I mean, fucking come on.
Someone fired. I didn’t know who. All I knew were the broken glass flying and blood spraying everywhere. I didn’t care. The darkness were already in us.
I were filled with it.
It were an odd noise to wake up to, a sound not often heard in the Mangel area. Airplanes. I opened me eyes and clocked five of em passing overhead in formation. I’d seen em like that somewhere else of late, but couldn’t recall where. Don’t matter. They wasn’t stopping in Mangel so it didn’t concern us, did it. I shifted up on me elbows.
She didn’t speak. Didn’t smile neither. Didn’t even look us in the eye. Not that I looked in hers. I stayed where I were and watched her walk over to the driver’s door. She opened it and reached up inside the cab, holding her leg out behind her for balance. When she jumped back down she had her little rucksack. She slung it over her shoulder and stood facing us, eyes down.
‘Mand…’ I says.
She didn’t speak nor smile nor look at us. Her nose looked all right now. Maybe I hadn’t broke it. I were glad of that. Shame to mar such prettiness. Arm were still in a sling, mind. Finney had a lot to answer for.
‘Mand,’ I says again. ‘Ta for that.’
She said nothing.
‘Helpin’ us out there.’ It weren’t easy, but I had to say summat. ‘I mean like, shootin’ yer own bro—’
‘Blake.’
‘Aye?’
‘Don’t.’
‘An’ Legsy…you knows I never meant to—’
‘Please, Blake…’
‘It were your two. Fuckin’ made us do it, they did. You saw em with them shotguns, didn’t you? Bastards.’
Summat rustled in the bushes behind us. I looked and saw a badger come out of the bushes following a scent. He stopped and sniffed the air in my direction, then turned arse and went back in the thicket. I turned back to Mandy. She were twenty yard away, off up the path that carries on past Hurk Wood and through the fields the other side. If you goes far enough along there you reaches the big city, they says. But I wouldn’t know about that.
I tried to get up, but me shoes and trousers was all wet and slippery and I fell on my arse. I tried again, more carefully. My leather were drenched in blood and all. I took it off and dropped it on the grass. But summat told us leaving it on the grass weren’t clever, so I picked it up and looked around.
The back of the Meat Wagon were shut. I took a deep un and opened her up. It were a meat wagon all right. And it’d take a lot of cleaning up. I put Legsy’s head where it belonged and draped me leather over him. Fuck the others, Muntons and that feller. They could lie where they was, eyeballs drying up.
I shut the doors, wiped my hands on the grass, and went up front.
The keys was in the slot. I started her up and let her rumble for a bit. I had a look around the cab. Weren’t much to see. Dirty old spade on the floor, copy of the Informer with my photo on the front in the door pocket, little box on the dashboard. It were wrapped in brown paper and sticky tape. I turned it over in me hands, weighing it up and shaking it a bit. Felt like a doofer to me, though I couldn’t be sure without opening it. I put it back on the dash and cut the engine. I grabbed the spade and headed out into the wood.
Sky were getting lighter behind the trees. Be dawn soon. Folks’d be getting up and going about their business, keeping their heads down and hoping nothing too bad happened to em. A bit later the pubs’d be opening for the day. And I aimed to be at the Paul Pry when they did, doofer in hand. Hard morning’s graft deserves a pint, don’t it?
Fucking right it do.
END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph by Lisa Williams, 2010
Charlie Williams was born in Worcester, England, in 1971, where he still lives with his wife and two children. His novels include Booze and Burn, King of the Road, and Stairway to Hell, and have been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian.
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