Headhunters

by John King

  Nothing could compare with Saturday night. Except Friday maybe. And they usually had a few beers on a Thursday, warming up for Friday. Saturdays were good though. There was more of a mixture in The Unity whereas The Hide was a younger pub, pre-Blues drinking, people from all over West London, The Unity more local. Carter seemed less rampant than usual, enjoying a drink with the lads. He pissed them off sometimes, sniffing around anything that moved. Slaughter passed them with a grin and went to the bar and kissed Denise on the cheek, leaving with a couple of his mates. Carter smiled to himself.

  ‘Will, what the fuck are you doing down here, you cunt?’ Balti shouted, wrapping his arm round the new arrival’s shoulder. ‘I thought your liver had given up now you’ve gone all romantic on us.’

  ‘Fancied a pint,’ he answered, a bit sheepish.

  ‘Hello,’ Karen said.

  ‘Alright darling?’ Balti said, more quietly. ‘I didn’t see you there. What do you want to drink?’

  ‘I’ll get them,’ Will insisted. ‘We’re only having a couple.’

  He went to the bar. The rest of the lads shifted a bit so Karen had some room. Balti was hammered but felt embarrassed all the same. It was bad manners mouthing off in front of a class bird.

  ‘Didn’t expect to see you tonight,’ Carter said.

  ‘I fancied a drink. I had to give Will a bit of a kick to get him moving. We got a video out but it was rubbish. We’re going back for the football. I heard Chelsea was nil-nil. Brentford won though. Beat Cardiff 3–1.’

  ‘It was a good enough game,’ Harry said. ‘Typical end of season match when you’ve got nothing to play for, but at least The Dutchman was making the effort. Earns enough mind, but I’d rather he had it than some wanker in Westminster. We were thinking of going over to Amsterdam for the weekend next month. Terry’s spiritual home, isn’t it mate.’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Why’s that then, Terry?’ Karen asked.

  ‘Just love Dutch football, that’s all. As soon as I got into football I remember watching Holland playing when Cruyff and Neeskens were around. I love the idea of total football. Look at the team they’ve got today. Overmars, Kluivert, Davids. Brilliant players.’

  ‘Have you heard of St Pauli?’ she asked.

  ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘It’s a football team in Germany, in Hamburg. It’s in the squatter’s area and the police are banned from the ground. Most of the fans are anarchists and instead of the national flag they fly the black flag. When there were riots against the police in Hamburg some of the players were even supposed to have taken part. I read about it. It sounds good. It’s not that far from Amsterdam, though I suppose the season would be over by the time you go.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing Ajax play,’ Terry admitted. ‘What are they called, the German team?’

  ‘St Pauli. They’re in Hamburg.’

  ‘That sounds alright as well. Depends on the anarchists of course. If they’re like some of the ones you get over here it wouldn’t be much. Students playing politics for a couple of weeks till they get a decent job.’

  ‘It’s probably better than that,’ Karen said. ‘It’s just something I read about, that’s all.’

  Will came back with two pints, Guinness for Karen, Directors for himself.

  ‘We were thinking of going to Amsterdam for a weekend during the summer,’ Balti told Will. ‘You don’t mind him coming do you?’ He turned to Karen.

  ‘Course I don’t. Why should I?’

  ‘Don’t know. Some women don’t like their boyfriends or whatever going off on their own.’

  ‘You’re a traditionalist at heart, aren’t you?’ Karen said, laughing. ‘You coming then, Will?’ Mango asked.

  ‘Don’t know. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Plenty of dope over there.’

  ‘Plenty over here. It depends on the money.’

  ‘Mango’s going to try and put the train tickets through his work,’ Terry said. ‘It’ll be worth it just to get his company to pay for something like that. Mind you, can’t see being able to put the drugs through, and the red light’s a no-no as well. Not that I’d be into it anyway.’

  ‘You lot aren’t like that, are you?’ Karen asked.

  The Sex Division shook their heads. Mango most of all, though he was the only one who’d ever paid for sex. He was looking forward to seeing Amsterdam’s famous red light district, though from Carter’s and Terry’s descriptions it sounded like shit. Then there was the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. But he was up-market now. Call girls. He moved the conversation on, feeling uncomfortable. It was something you wanted to keep quiet, a failure really, and he wished he hadn’t mentioned anything to the others in the first place.

  ‘Will was saying you might be going down to Cornwall for a week in the summer,’ he ventured.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Tintagel,’ she said. ‘Ever since I was a kid. It’s beautiful in Cornwall. There’s less people and the landscape’s the nearest you get to Ireland in England.’

  Harry was happy. He had the gift. Maybe he was psychic. Seeing things in the future. Of course, it was only now and then, but it gave him a buzz when it happened. Like he was above fate and in control. If he could get it a bit more accurate, control the gift, then he’d be away. Imagine being able to predict the future. You’d make a packet with the horses and win the Lottery every weekend. They wouldn’t be able to stop him and he’d keep on taking their money. The world would be his.

  ‘I dreamt about a moor with stones last night,’ he told Karen, who seemed impressed. ‘I’ve done it a few times now, seen things that happen later. It’s never really clear at first, but when it happens I know right away.’

  ‘Are you a lucid dreamer?’ Karen asked.

  ‘That’s when you’re in a dream and know you’re there, isn’t it, so you’re able to control it and make it go the way you want. That wouldn’t be a real dream.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Balti said, aggrieved. ‘It’s like daydreaming. You can have dreams when you’re awake. They don’t always have to be buried.’

  ‘That’s alright if you can be honest with yourself, but the thing is, you’re always going to be turning them your own way. It’s better to be straight and let it sort itself out. Then you’ve got the problem of working out what it means and making sense of what you’ve dreamt. That’s the part that does me in. But when you finally understand, you’re made up.’

  ‘Who says you can trust what happens when you’re asleep? Anyway, everything’s natural.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s natural,’ Terry said, getting a bit fed up with the dream shit, daydreams or night dreams, it was all images and airy-fairy hippy bollocks. ‘What’s natural is getting a decent pint down your throat.’

  They all laughed. Karen liked Will’s mates. Mango interested her. To see someone like that change their stripes, when inside he understood how things worked. He was aware, but had given up. Will insisted that deep down Mango was still the same person as when he was a kid, that it was to do with Pete.

  ‘I’m going home to watch the football,’ Balti announced twenty minutes before closing-time. ‘I’ve had enough.’

  ‘You’re recording it,’ Harry said. He had his second wind and fancied a few more. Carter knew he was in with Denise.

  ‘Hold on and we’ll walk back with you,’ Will said.

  They drank up and moved through the pub. Will was always surprised when he went into a drunk pub sober. It was mental, watching the deterioration, the conversation and behaviour. Unless things got nasty it was a good laugh, though there was always an undercurrent in pubs like The Unity, though The Hide was worse, with regular punch-ups and now and then someone getting glassed. That place was a tinderbox, packed with geezers ready to start tearing up. He didn’t like the place. It was ugly. But The Unity was fine. And it was a nice evening. He was really going to enjoy this summer.

  Will, Karen and Balti turned off the high street, sharing some of the
short journey home. Televisions created patterns through net curtains and men and women sat watching life pass by. Everything was fine. Business was picking up after a slack period and Will was in love with Karen. They’d even told each other as much. She was going to move in with him soon. Will felt the best about life he had done for years. The streets were quiet and he could think straight, a couple of pints enough during hot weather like this. Now and then a car passed, and when Karen bent down to stroke a white cat it made a noise then hurried off. They came to their street and Balti turned down the chance to watch the football round Will’s. He was knackered and didn’t want to move again that night.

  Balti checked his watch. He was pissed but the air was clearing his head. He breathed in deeply and enjoyed the oxygen. As he was beginning to exhale he felt himself spun round and for a second thought he was a kid’s top and wanted to laugh seeing the flash of a familiar face from five months back, his last memory of the working world, five months for someone to pick his moment and bring his head into contact with the space between Balti’s eyes, that spot where there was supposed to be a secret gland that told the future and everything there was to know about everything else, he’d heard about that from some Indian at work, but the pain wasn’t mystical, just a dagger through his skull rattling the brain’s suspension and that moment of happiness, of breathing in and out in silence, shot out the hole, though maybe the drink had dimmed the sensation a bit but not enough, he should have had a couple more down the pub with his mates who were back there enjoying themselves, and he was bouncing back and that cunt McDonald was there in the flesh with big black eyes, where was the fucking blue, that’s what they said about Paddies, their blue eyes and tin whistles and Balti was spinning remembering in slow motion his own headbutt down in Tooting, putting a man on his arse all that time ago, another world now where you got a pay packet at the end of the week and didn’t have to search supermarket shelves looking for special offers and could have a pint whenever you wanted not worrying about pounds and pence rather than saving it up, and he reckoned the kicking was going to be a bit of lynch mob justice for the five car stereos he’d nicked for some pocket money that’s what happened when you got fuck all off the social the only way to survive was to start acting like a juvenile again, thieving small time, McDonald something he’d forgotten about after the night the Irishman came calling knowing that revenge was going to take an exact course and waiting for the kick but trying to pull himself into shape, swinging a punch that didn’t connect then feeling his arms pulled behind him up tight in the base of his back with a heavy smell of tobacco and McDonald was saying something that he didn’t get and there were another couple of shapes, one on either side like birds on his shoulders, massive fucking vultures waiting to pick at the remains of the dead, the dustmen, nature’s bin men those Orangemen, waiting for the kick thinking about the old stretched scrotum and then it dug in deep with the pain jetting up through his body sending his balls racing in pure agony and he was sinking down and felt his arms released and they were kicking him on a patch of grass and he was wide open and he saw these legs in the air as one of the cunts, he wasn’t sure which one, it didn’t really matter, tried to stamp on his head and connected with the side of his face and they were sticking the boot in, stretched out, and he was in and out of it thinking about everything taken back knowing now why he was on the dole surviving on forty-six quid unable to live like a human being while the world around him insisted he was a sponger, politicians who spent that much on their breakfasts, that’s what they did, they hired prostitutes and the prostitutes got you on the floor and kicked the shit out of you, stuck the boot in good and proper, and it was just being work shy that stopped him getting a job and those who lived by the sword died by the sword except that it wasn’t a sword and he was shouting some kind of insult at the four men around him like they were vivisectionists or something, and he remembered that conversation with Karen saying what would it be like to have your arms and legs nailed down while some old cunt, no, she didn’t use that word because she’d said once that it was insulting to women, some old sod with a scalpel half blind drooling into his tea not using the anaesthetic right trying to slit the rabbit open, carve it up, and Balti had no sympathy for himself because you had to have personal responsibility and everything and there was no forgiveness from your enemies, the fucking Belfast cunt and his scum mates, for the first time in his life he wished the IRA would blow the fuckers away because he saw the heavy hammer coming and he knew his legs were going, but then it all stopped for some reason and he heard shouting and the running of feet, one last kick in the head and a laugh saying the score’s settled you fat cunt and then there were slamming doors exhaust fumes burning rubber and there was this black face right up against him with Ruud Gullit dreadlocks tight to the scalp and a thick West Indian voice, but he was alright, still conscious, and he sat up against a wall and tried to see straight trying to work things out, but bollocks, it was fine now though he was probably concussed and the three men around Balti were helping him up saying they’d call an ambulance on their mobile, but he said he was alright, he could look after himself and stand on his own two feet, and there were more strangers around him talking among themselves and now and then asking him if he was okay, so he stood up a bit unsteady feeling embarrassed getting a spanking on his own manor, but they were bad odds four or five on to one, and he was angry with himself getting slack thinking things like that would fade away and he was going to get the bastards, the first reaction was revenge, living the nightmare, fucking right, no surrender, no turning the other cheek, who the fuck did they think they were, and then he went down on the pavement and sat there for a long time getting his strength back.

  SCUM OF TOYTOWN

  Hammers echoed deep inside Churchill Mansion, the dull thud of steel on concrete filtering along tunnels and walkways, through broken security gates and across the common to where Balti sat on a park bench. By the time the vibration reached him it carried little of its original force. Music sounded further inside the building, thumping bass matching the hammers. Consciously he heard nothing. Just felt the gradually dimming pain in his skull and the sun on bare arms. The lion tattoo was worn and tired, a faded ghost of its original glory. The ink had been ground down over the past fifteen years and the Union Jack wrapped around the king of the Stamford Bridge savannah had lost the defining edges of its red, white and blue grooves. The skin had healed and absorbed the graffiti. It was two weeks since Balti had been on the receiving end of McDonald’s anger and the breaks and bruises were still mending.

  ‘Mind if I sit with you for a while son?’ the man asked.

  Balti shook his head. The old boy with the trolley had turned up at the same time the past couple of days. At first Balti was annoyed, but kept his mouth shut. It was a free world and they lived in a democratic society. One of the oldest on the planet. With the best judiciary and finest armed services, a sense of fair play and profound love of decency.

  George wasn’t as barmy as he first seemed. He was in his fifties with bleary labrador eyes and creased clothes. This morning he was clean-shaven. It was something the younger man had let slip. Normally he wouldn’t go more than a day without a shave. He made sure he got his money’s worth from the plastic razors. But the last couple of months he’d been going two, three, four days. His best mate had even accused him of turning into a hippy, a long-haired wanker who needed a good scrub. His hair needed seeing to, the number 2 crop filling out a bit. He was pushing past grade 4 and pissed off with his own laziness. He would visit the barber soon. But four quid was four quid and not to be thrown about when you were hard up.

  That’s what happened. You let your standards slip. Yet it didn’t matter. Not really. That’s what you realised. It changed your ideas being on the dole for months on end. Single mothers took a battering from politicians who screamed they were sponging off the state. You wondered if there was a bit of truth in the official hate campaign when you were in work looking af
ter number one, no smoke without fire mentality. Like a kid would get herself up the duff for an extra tenner a week. The politicians got you thinking their way. Constant assault and battery. Assaulting your intelligence and battering you about the head soon as you hit the deck. But it brought you back to reality. Opened your eyes again. Got rid of the selfishness. Those cunts down the social, some useless but well-meaning, the others arrogant scum who only escaped a good kicking because you needed the button on the computer punched so you’d get your cheque on time.

  ‘It’s a fine day,’ the man said. ‘Feel that heat on your head. Nothing can beat a sunny day. It’s easy to understand why they used to worship it on a day like today. There were sun-worshippers all over the world you know, and I’m not talking about boys and girls sitting on a beach trying to turn themselves into darkies. We make fun of the sunworshippers now, but it’s understandable really. Without that ball of burning gas none of this would exist. No photosynthesis, no energy, no life. We’d live in a world without colour if the sun ever burnt out. Think of that. Just consider it for a moment, won’t you? We wouldn’t last very long. We’d be nothing more than notions. Undeveloped ideas floating through the universe. That’s all we boil down to at the end of the day anyway. Energy and notions. Some we call good, some we call bad. You have to take your pick, that’s all. Make your choice and claim your reward. Please consider what I have just said.’

  Balti raised his head and shaded his eyes. He was sweating and it was running under his eyelids. He couldn’t get near the sun. George wore cheap sunglasses. Balti wasn’t bothered. He knew the sun was up there and didn’t need to burn a hole in his eyeball to prove the point. There was no need to blur your vision. He leant back on the bench. It had been dedicated to a Mrs Someone Or Other, the name of the dead woman cut by kids with no respect for memories.