Headhunters

by John King

  Doesn’t it affect you when you’re with a woman?’ The second of the two asked, moving closer and taking him at face value, maybe taking the piss, while her friend adjusted her stance. ‘Doesn’t it make things a bit difficult with all that skin getting in the way?’

  ‘It takes a bit of imagination, that’s all,’ Harry laughed.

  He was taken back to last night with the two women on top of the hill. He hadn’t slept well, the weather hot and humid, summer arriving early with the effects of global warming and city pollution. The confusion of the seasons was mucking up his sleep. Everything was shifting around. In the winter he dreamt of the tropics and psychedelic jungles, where his surroundings were bursting with life and sound, the natural world mixed with futuristic technology, Mayan Indians disguised as Aztecs and Frank Bruno on the door. Now it was almost summer and he was stuck on a moor, without shelter, with seven thousand shades of black and white for company. He was part of a line drawing and there was a coldness about everything, the cracks in the sky cracks in broken bone china. There’d been a woman in a white gown laying on a horizontal stone, a woman in a black dress in the background next to a fossilised tree. It was a dead oak and the only tree to be seen. The woman on the slab was alive and tripping on special-offer button mushrooms. In a semi-conscious state with her brain frying from all the things she’d seen. Somehow it was up to Harry and Balti to show her that it was worth going on with life, that just because she’d seen a crow flap its wings and been able to follow the vibrations through the air, it didn’t mean that boring everyday life wasn’t worth living.

  They were old men. With long beards and slight hunches. Merlin wizards without the magic. The end was near and they were dressed in rags. A couple of tramps on top of a moor surrounded by ancient stones not knowing what to do next. They’d lost their way. Balti leant forward and the woman’s eyes opened. Harry remembered the black circles, the emptiness; eyes without pupils. A thin white arm pulled Balti forward. The woman turned sideways and Balti slid onto the stone. Harry turned his head away but heard their moans. She was a witch and was draining Balti’s resistance. Harry tried to say something but no sound came from his mouth. He left the moor, the footsteps of the second woman right behind as he hurried towards the orange glow of London. He turned once and saw that the second woman was dressed in worn-out rubber and had the head of a giant insect. London was on fire. He ran from the moor, covered in a thick sweat that soaked his mattress.

  The two women made their excuses and went off to the Ladies, and Balti and Harry had a laugh, not expecting them to return. Fuck it anyway. They were enjoying themselves, Carter well away with the blonde. Not a bad-looking bit of skirt if they were honest, but the music was loud and they were pissed and nothing could touch them, no fucking way. It was May and they’d been to a goalless draw in front of a full house. The Sex Division had gone a bit quiet as well, with Carter so far out in front now, Mango in second place with those posh numbers from his work, while Harry and Balti were in serious relegation trouble without even a sniff of a point. Will, meantime, had gone underground since he’d got all serious with Karen. They didn’t even know how many points he was on, and Carter had stopped winding him up about it because Will wasn’t shifting. But Carter liked Karen as well and didn’t really want to know, just felt he had to ask. It was expected of him. Will said he wasn’t in the Sex Division any more, which was fair enough really, when you had class like that, but they still included him. Who needed dodgy old boilers when a decent bird paid you attention?

  ‘You in there or what?’ Carter asked when the blonde had followed her friends to the toilet.

  ‘If they like their bollocks hanging free,’ Harry said, filling him in on the details.

  ‘I don’t understand you two.’ Carter was unamused. ‘There’s two fit-looking birds obviously up for it, gagging for a good servicing more like, with studs in their tits and fannies, and you two start feeding them a line about having Plasticine balls. I mean, what’s the game? Don’t you like women or something?’

  ‘Not Plasticine balls,’ Balti said. ‘Elastic sacks.’

  The Bollock Brothers were cracking up. Balti looked like he was going to have a heart attack. He was doubled in half and there were tears in his eyes.

  ‘What’s the fucking difference?’ Carter was getting excited now. ‘Don’t you want to get in there? I’m not surprised your balls are down to your ankles. It’s the middle of May and you’re not even off the mark yet. It’s spring-time lads. Make an effort.’

  ‘There’s a lot of difference,’ Balti insisted. ‘We’re not choirboys with our balls bit off by the vicar. You couldn’t produce much with Plasticine balls, could you? But just because you’ve stretched your sack doesn’t mean you can’t bring pleasure to a beautiful woman. That’s the problem today, nobody appreciates differences. We’re unique. We’re the Nut Crackers.’

  Harry was laughing and didn’t want an argument. It was good to see Balti enjoying himself. After five months signing on he was coiled tight. It was a long time living on a pittance. He thought about the desolate moorland and the rags they’d been wearing. Maybe it was a warning. He should watch out for his own job. That’s what happened to you in the end. On a slab of concrete with blind birds the only ones willing to spend time with you. There was no helping hand when you went down. Mango had that much worked out. He’d said he’d be along later, they were meeting him in The Unity. Harry had forgotten about that, but Mango had been blowing them out a lot recently. It was his WorldView commitments and those posh birds he was into at the Barbican. It was another world. Harry knew it wound Balti up when Mango went into one, the fact that they came from the same backgrounds making unemployment something personal. The propaganda fired through the TV and radio, covering the front of the papers, that didn’t do anyone any good either. Just made the likes of Balti feel more useless than ever.

  Balti saw the three women come out of the bogs. He pointed them out. They stood for a minute talking, then left the pub together.

  ‘Couple of fucking lesbians,’ Balti said. ‘Don’t know what they’re missing.’

  ‘Dykes, mate,’ Harry agreed. ‘Fucking dykes.’

  ‘Probably off to some queer club,’ Balti said, knocking back his drink. ‘Some place that costs twenty quid to get in just so they can pay three quid for a bottle of foreign lager surrounded by a bunch of fucking shirt-lifters.’

  ‘More like fat birds with short hair and beards.’

  ‘They didn’t like the old stretched bollocks routine much,’ Balti noted. ‘Couple of posers. Seems like it’s alright sticking a ring through your clit, but stretch your sack and you’re an outcast. Where’s the fucking equality in that?’

  ‘Didn’t fancy yours much anyway,’ Harry said.

  ‘Didn’t fancy yours either,’ Balti agreed.

  ‘Lesbians.’

  ‘Dykes.’

  ‘Fucking horrible.’

  ‘A narrow escape.’

  ‘Fuck knows what’s been up those two.’

  ‘Right old slappers.’

  ‘Another pint?’

  ‘Don’t see why not. No need to be uncivilised, is there?’

  ‘What about you, shag man.’

  ‘They just pissed off,’ Carter said, stunned. He wasn’t used to getting blown out. ‘They went without a word. I was well in there. It’s you two going on about your bollocks the whole time. You fucked it up. I was on for a minimum three-pointer.’

  ‘Do you want a drink or what?’ Balti was getting narked now, took the glasses and muscled his way to the bar.

  ‘You ballsed that up badly,’ Carter told Harry. ‘You should play the game. Talk shit with them for an hour or two because that’s all you’ve got to do and then you’re in. Show them you’ve got a bit of a brain and think they’re the cream and before you know it you’re away. Birds are easy to work out. Flatter them. That’s all it takes.’

  ‘Can’t be bothered,’ Harry laughed. ‘We’re pissed. Who
cares? We’re having a laugh. If she starts off talking about piercing her tits then what does she expect? You’ve got to have a laugh. It doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘What about relegation?’

  ‘Fuck that. I’d rather have a laugh and go down than say things I don’t want to say just to get a few points. I’d rather have a wank than waste my time talking gibberish with some poser.’

  Carter stood in silence looking around the packed Hide until Balti returned. Time was standing still with the music blaring and Harry couldn’t get his thinking straight, that miserable dream of last night confusing things. He liked everything in order. Neatly filed and understood. The dream was all mixed up with what was going on around him. He was losing the thread and when Carter suggested going down The Unity he remembered Mango. They drank up.

  They walked slowly and Balti stopped to get some chips. The door was open but it was still a pressure cooker inside, with the oil bubbling and fat frying and some skinhead on his way out with a half-eaten roti. There was a woman in front with a couple of small kids buying the Saturday night special. They waited while the chips were wrapped and Harry watched the woman disappear. Kaleidoscope patterns of passing traffic pulsed inside the window, light caught in blasted sand. He was feeling the effects of the drink and last night’s dream still wouldn’t go away. It bothered him. He was trying to think back but the winter setting kept getting in the way. He was sweating heavily. The weather forecasters said it was going to be a hot summer. Long and hot. Balti took his chips and they continued down the street. It was half-nine.

  The woman’s white gown had been almost transparent, but there was no warning that she would pull Balti towards her, that she was interested in anything other than what was happening inside her head. She belonged to a different tribe, with her long hair and weathered features. She wasn’t ugly, but not exactly state-of-the-art Modern English. She wasn’t what she seemed and Harry couldn’t pinpoint what she represented. Those eyes must mean something. The scenery was sparse and brutal. It was going back to a primitive environment. Somewhere on the coast of Scotland or Ireland perhaps, though there was nothing to show they were outside England other than the barren landscape. He thought instead of the woman in rubber, the insect head that made him nervous. It wasn’t much fun when you started dreaming of bondage insects, giant fuckers who would suck your blood and kick your carcass into the gorse. Past and present. Maybe that’s what it was. It didn’t sound right somehow. The stones were obvious, magic and druids, but what about rubber woman?

  ‘These are fucking shit,’ Balti moaned halfway down the street. ‘I should take them back.’

  Harry tried one. They weren’t cooked right. He threw the chip in to the gutter. Even the chippies were going down hill these days. Balti ate a few more and put the rest in a bin. The Unity was up ahead. It was an odd feeling, the end of the football season and the start of summer. There would be a hole for the next few months. At least with the football there was something solid at the end of the week. They were all season ticket holders and averaged thirty or so games a season. They’d been going since they were kids. Older and wiser, they avoided aggravation, back into a second childhood of team selection and tactics discussions. The eighties had been a bit mental with Chelsea on the rampage week in, week out, but they’d got older and couldn’t be bothered. Things had changed. All of them had the odd flashback to childhood, carefree days growing up.

  ‘Alright Slaughter?’ Carter asked as they entered the pub.

  ‘Not bad mate,’ the nutter replied, and Carter had a subtle look towards the bar where Denise was serving.

  Unknown to the rest of the lads, Carter had been shagging Denise for the last month and a half. Dirty Denise. He’d been right about her, she was a right goer. The best bit of sex he’d had for years. She seemed to get off on the knowledge that Slaughter would kill them if he found out she was doing the dirty on him. Carter didn’t like that part of the arrangement, but he kept going back for more all the same. He’d had his eye on Denise for ages and knew she was interested, but it had been an accident how she’d ended up round his flat. Carter and Ian had finished delivering early and he’d bumped into Denise in the street. She’d invited herself round for a drink and he’d been nervous in case they were spotted and word filtered back to Slaughter. They’d got pissed on vodka and Denise ended up staying. She was mental. There was passion there alright, but it boiled near to violence, which Carter wasn’t keen on, but he didn’t want to put her off, just keep it in line a bit. There was no way some bird was going to tie him up. No fucking way. He’d heard a story like that from some bloke down Chelsea, about some other cunt nobody seemed to know personally who’d picked up this bird down a club in Brixton, gone back with her and let her tie him to the bed. Next thing he knows a six-foot nigger turns up, shafts him up the arse so hard he needs thirty stitches, and then the poor cunt gets robbed into the bargain. Not that Carter reckoned Slaughter was an iron, but you never knew what else Denise might have planned. Trust might’ve been the basis of all good relationships, but he wasn’t looking for any of that from Denise.

  It was iffy, though, with Slaughter being a headcase and Carter slipping his missus a length, Denise a bit suspect. He didn’t feel guilt or anything like that, it was just that he enjoyed life and wanted to die in his sleep or from old age, not under the fine edge of a machete. From the first time she’d come round, Carter had thought about knocking it on the head, but he still kept going. The longer it went on the harder it was going to be walking away. He would keep his head down, but knew he was asking for a kicking. She was a good ride though. He switched back to their last session as he worked his way to the bar, Denise with her vibrator and clitoral stimulator spilling out of her handbag. The dirty cow.

  ‘Three pints of lager please Denise,’ he said, avoiding the barmaid’s eyes, then watching her move along the bar. She had a lovely arse. Eileen was back there with the landlord and his brother-in-law, who helped out sometimes.

  ‘There you go Terry,’ Denise smiled, eye-to-eye contact for a split second as he handed over his money.

  ‘I thought you were coming down at nine,’ Mango moaned, appearing from the mass of people crowded into the pub.

  ‘Thought you’d be blowing us out again,’ Balti said.

  ‘I’ve got the night off,’ Mango smiled. ‘It’s a bit quiet at the moment. That Saudi deal kept us up late for ages and now it’s over we’re left playing with ourselves.’

  ‘What about that Penny you’re always going on about?’ Balti asked.

  ‘She’s alright. I saw her last night.’

  Mango was moving forward in the world. He’d given up on the degraded scum haunting King’s Cross and moved up market. The old bill were cleaning up the area, moving the problem on with the help of the council which was looking for a bit of inner-city rejuvenation, and Mango was pleased. It was an eyesore and not exactly conducive to economic growth. A couple of the chaps at WorldView had opened his eyes to that one. Being men of commerce and in the peak of physical condition, training at a Mayfair gym which Mango was considering joining, they had little time for women and found chance meetings a waste of resources. Time was of the essence. Ridley and Hetherington would have been appalled at the thought of picking commoners off the street. They had outlined the best approach over a working lunch, and Mango had accepted the card Hetherington put on the table.

  James Wilson was better than King’s Cross. The agency supplied quality acts, and while he paid heavily for the privilege of shafting women with nice accents and expensive gear, he considered it money well spent. There was a selection of nationalities available. Models from Zurich, Paris, Copenhagen. They would do anything for a price. Mind you, a pro was a pro, but they weren’t so desperate somehow. Kids from Halifax were definite victims while at least Mango could feel the cold steel of a financial transaction with the call girls. They weren’t even called whores. It was so much more sophisticated. Corporate sex. It felt internat
ional, with none of that Anglo-Saxon bawdiness he had grown up with. It was Eurosex. Multinational business transactions. There was a lot of religion at WorldView and the likes of Ridley and Hetherington had been educated in public schools rigidly controlled by the Church Of England. Perhaps it was being a Christian, making money and respecting wealth. It was the next stage in Mango’s development. He reminded himself that he was a Christian. Fucking right he was.

  ‘Penny’s into it alright,’ Mango explained, lowering his voice. ‘She’s got all the gear and I’m not talking your everyday stockings and suspenders either. Wanted to know if I wore hoods. Whether seeing as how I was a Tory voter, did I follow my masters and need a good caning and a night behind bars?’

  Harry smiled and felt a bit better. Carter shook his head and marvelled at the workings of the female mind. Balti felt like he was going to throw up. A nightmare situation. It was bad enough the ruling class beat you into submission day after day, year after year, grinding you down and then screaming that you were a sponger for accepting benefits you’d paid for a hundred times over during the previous decade and a half. They humiliated you every day of your fucking life and then their women wanted to put a hood on your head so you didn’t even have a fucking face, whipping you like they did in the Middle Ages. Fucking slag, and there was Mango, accepting the dogma and pissing on his own kind. Balti remembered those two kids he’d told them about. The bird from Halifax. He was on the verge of headbutting the cunt but held back. A year or two years younger and he’d have done him no problem. Mate or no mate. You had to have morals or you were fuck all in this world, but it was choosing the right morals and sticking to them that was hardest. There were plenty of wankers around who wanted to define the rights and wrongs for you. Karen had been right about that one. They’d had a long talk about it and Balti saw it more clearly. She was telling him that he was the victim and not the criminal. It was hard to see yourself as a victim, it made you look like a wanker and everything, like you were another castrated cunt on the box going on about the suppression of women and the white man’s guilt. You had to work according to your own standards. Funny really, but Will had told him more or less the same thing, soon after he’d lost his job. But it had been presented in a different way. Not so direct. Karen got to the point. He respected her but he was no victim. No fucking way. He downed his pint and went to the bar for a refill, the others way behind, spending money he didn’t have.