by John King
‘Hello son,’ George called, his trolley packed tight.
‘Alright George? You’ve been busy. It’s only ten.’
George sat down and wiped his face with a rag. There were wet patches under his arms and a strong smell of sweat. He needed a bath. You had to look after yourself.
‘I woke up at five and felt like I’d been given an electric shock. I was raring to go and was up and out by half-past. It was such a beautiful morning, walking through empty streets with just the cats for company. One or two cars, but otherwise a city empty of life. The air was cooler and the engines hadn’t started up yet. I was ready for the big push and here I am with a heavy cargo and an early finish. I’m going to dump this lot and start again. See if I can do two loads before midday. I won’t stop long. There’s work needs doing. Why don’t you give it a go? We could work together. We’d make a fine team.’
Balti tried to imagine himself working the bins with George. He didn’t fancy it somehow. The bloke was speeding and Balti was taking things nice and slow. George needed to hit the brakes. He shook his head. He didn’t like the idea that George saw this younger man as similar to himself. Balti was passing through. He wasn’t a dosser.
‘Is that drugs you’re smoking?’ George asked, looking over his shoulder and then back at Balti, lowering his voice.
‘Sort of.’
‘Can I have a go? It won’t get me hooked, will it? I don’t want to end up an addict with no idea of what’s going on around me, living in a fantasy world.’
Balti laughed.
‘It’s harmless. Drink and fags do more damage.’
‘What about that ecstasy stuff you read about then? Now that’s a real killer. Kids dropping dead like flies. I’ve heard that their brains explode. I wouldn’t want any of that, though the way I’m feeling now I don’t think I need it. I’ve got so much energy I could shoot off into space. I feel like Superman.’
George inhaled and sat back. They were silent for a while. Balti looked towards Churchill Mansion. He was thinking of that scouse bird up in Blackpool. He wondered what she was doing now. She was alright.
‘That helped,’ George eventually said. ‘It happens like this. I don’t feel like doing much for months and then I’m off when the sun comes out. I have to slow down a little. Did I tell you that once I was out walking early and I saw a fox coming down the road. He was big as well. Probably thought he had the streets to himself, but he didn’t mind that I was there. He kept going on his way. I shouldn’t sit around talking though. I know what people think. They think the old man is eccentric, a bit of a character, maybe a little strange. But I have a purpose. I have an aim. I have ambition. That drug helped. I’ll give myself till twelve and have a nap maybe, if I get another trolley done. I’ll be off now.’
Balti watched George struggle with his load. The poor bloke needed to knock himself out, but sometimes you didn’t get the chance. It was easier being sedated than trying to fight back. Balti thought about fighting back but wouldn’t have known where to start. There was nowhere to go. Nothing that could be done. He was white trash like they said. Scorned by both the Right and Left. Judged by silver-spoon commentators who didn’t understand the complexities of English culture. The behaviour and use of language. You couldn’t win. Whatever you said or did was going to be wrong. So you gave up instead.
He hung around for ages, watching people pass and the pure white clouds above play kiss chase with the sun. He was hot and fancied a pint. A cold pint of lager. Maybe he’d treat himself, seeing as he had the money from the stereos. Just the one though. He didn’t want to end up getting pissed every day like the winos you saw year in year out, rotting their livers and brains. He’d top himself before he ended up like that. He was a social drinker. He had to keep a firm hold on things.
Will sifted through the racks, searching for the vinyl that would give him that special kick, the intense feeling that discovery brought. He was meeting Karen in half an hour for a drink during her break, and using the time wisely. It was funny to think that eight months ago he’d been in this same shop and had first spoken to her a few feet from where he was now standing. It was pure romance, a mutual interest in good music bringing them to the record shop at the same moment. Now they were living together and he couldn’t imagine anything coming between them. They were made for each other. It was one of those things you know is right the moment it happens. It was a fresh start for a new year and it had all happened so fast. Now they were sharing a bed and that was perfect as well. Will was happy. More happy than he’d ever been. The balance was just right.
A Blackbeard album passed under Will’s fast-moving fingers and he paused over Two Sevens Clash. Now that was real culture. The Clash had understood. He flicked the yellow cardboard and stopped dead. Heavy Duty Manners by Keith Hudson, and the sticker said it was in mint condition. Will was well chuffed and lifted the album cover from its polythene sleeve. He inspected the cover and hovered for a while, before half-heartedly completing his inspection of the rack. The bloke behind the counter had just put on a ragga track. Will hated ragga. All that macho guns-and-bitches bollocks. He hated violence. He paid for Keith Hudson and hurried out into the street. He couldn’t wait to play the album. Maybe he could make it home before he met Karen. He checked his watch. He didn’t have time. There was a small record player at work that he sometimes used, so he’d give it a spin there. Better still, he’d shoot off home after he’d met Karen. He’d just have to open the shop a bit later. The punters could wait. He wanted to hear the record on some proper gear. Usually he listened to tapes at work, only using the dodgy record player when a customer wanted to hear one of the shitty old albums he kept by the door.
‘You’re early,’ he said, walking into The Crown and finding Karen already sitting at the bar.
‘I punched out a quarter of an hour ahead of time. I thought I’d find you here already. I’ve really missed you today.’
‘I saw you this morning.’
‘I know, but I still missed you. Silly isn’t it?’
‘No, it’s nice. I missed you too. Do you want a half in that, or another pint?’
Will paid for two pints and ordered a couple of Ploughmans. They went to a table and worked their way into the corner. The Crown was a steady kind of pub and didn’t get flooded during the day. It was a hard-drinking, middle-aged pub at night and they must’ve been coining it behind the bar.
‘Look what I found,’ Will said, opening the plastic bag and pulling out the album he’d just bought.
Karen smiled and kissed his cheek. He was like a school kid with his enthusiasm for music. It was a quality she found attractive. It meant their life together would never be sad. They were solid and there was an understanding she’d never known before with a man. He was as open as anyone she’d known and it meant they could live together. She was happy with Will. They were great together. It had been love at first sight, though that wasn’t strictly true, because she’d known him when she was a kid, but then it had only been a childish crush. She’d met the family, her old friend Ruth, and it was natural and easygoing. Will had his shop and mates and interests, and she had her job with the council and her friends and interests. They were into a lot of the same things, while their friends were separate, which was healthy. They both hated the idea of happy couples going out in groups of six and eight and any even number under the sun. It gave them room to breathe. Independence was important. So were the Ploughmans coming their way, because Karen was starving. That last case had built up her appetite. If she could change anything, it would be the amount of dope Will smoked, but he was a laid-back bloke and it was only an extension of his character.
‘What do you want to do this evening?’ Karen asked.
‘Listen to this record.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘That’s enough.’
‘I thought I could make us something special for dinner. Don’t look surprised. There’s no reason, I just thought it would be nice.’
It was fine by Will. Sometimes it seemed unreal how he’d met Karen and how everything had gone so well for them both. He’d start thinking that it couldn’t last, that she was too good for him, but then Karen was with him again and everything really was fine. It would be something to look forward to while he was in the shop. There was nothing better than a good bit of music, a decent smoke, a drink or two, some home cooking, and quality time with a quality woman. That’s what love and comradeship was all about. That’s the way men and women should be. You couldn’t ask for more.
Balti had only planned on the one, but he’d got the taste and was on his fourth pint. He’d had a chat with Len behind the bar and Eileen had said hello, but The Unity was near enough empty except for a few pensioners sipping halves of stout and bitter. He sat at the bar and Len asked if he’d ever met up with those Paddies who’d come in that time looking for him. Balti smiled. It was a couple of weeks since he’d thought about McDonald. He shook his head. It was funny, but something happened and it was important for a while, and then it was sorted, and before you knew where you were it was forgotten. It was months ago when they’d gone down Balham. Balti tried to remember the details, but it was blurred now. An old video ready to be recorded over. It was history. When Len went out back he moved to the window. He’d been on his toes for ages, but nothing had happened. McDonald had learnt his lesson. Don’t fuck with Balti. Even so, he shouldn’t get sloppy even now. He saw the van speeding down the street, indicate right and park up outside. Carter jumped out and came into the pub.
‘Alright Balti?’ he asked, looking toward the counter.
Balti watched Carter go to the bar. He said something to Eileen and she shook her head. Balti liked Eileen, but knew he didn’t stand a chance. Maybe he’d take her over to Jamaica. She could work in the bar at the hotel while he sat on the beach getting oil rubbed into his back. At the moment she wouldn’t look at him. Birds expected you to be doing well. It was a power trip. Whatever you said, it was the law of the jungle. Most of them looked at blokes as a provider, the old lion-out-on-the-prowl-hunting routine. It was in the fucking genes. You never saw a dead-end bloke with a quality bird. No chance. You needed to be flash and drive a convertible to pull the models. The real hundred-carat crumpet. You had to have something to offer. They weren’t interested in your mind. They wanted to be looked after. Not when it came to onenighters, but long term. Slags were like blokes, just wanted a good fuck. The best you could hope for was someone on your own level, though if you accepted that yourself then maybe it wasn’t surprising others looked at you the same way.
Balti couldn’t be bothered about it all now. There was no way out. More jobs lugging bricks. Sitting on his own drowning his sorrows staring into a glass. He’d finish this drink and go see his mum. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been round the old girl’s. Carter came over, said a few words, and went back to work. He seemed wound up. Balti finished his drink, took the glass to the bar, and left.
It was a fifteen-minute walk to his mum’s. As he went he started thinking about her and how he should go round more often. His dad had run off when he was fifteen and they’d never heard from the cunt again. For the last five years his mum had been living with a retired copper. It was hard to take at first. A fucking copper. Everyone hated the old bill. They were fucking scum. It had been a few years ago when she met him, and once he got talking with the bloke he’d found that he wasn’t that bad. He would never forget he’d been old bill, but you had to go along with things sometimes. Bob treated his mum well. That was the most important thing.
Bob could tell a story. With his tales about the Krays and Richardsons. Mad Frankie Fraser who was on the telly these days. Now there was a bloke who’d never given up, no matter what the system did to him. You had to admire people like that. Balti never knew if Bob was telling porkies or had really been involved with the top gangsters of the day. When he reminisced he spoke of the Met as though he and the force were one. After serving his time he’d set up in the security business, made a packet to go with his pension, and was willing to share it with his new love. Balti’s old girl had peace at last and a four-bedroom house, money in her purse and all her old friends. She’d done well for herself and Balti realised that he was thinking the same way, that he was seeing her as a woman who needed looking after. But it was different, because his old man was a cunt and he loved his mum. His dad had knocked her about and treated them like shit. It wasn’t even like he was an alkie, and he’d made good money on the trains. Till he lost his job. There were no excuses. He was a cunt pure and simple. If Balti ever saw him again he’d give him a good kicking. The old man had slapped him around enough when he was a kid. A fucking sadist. Slapped the old girl. Black eyes and missing teeth. Crying children. A mother’s love and sobs. No wonder some women hated men. Maybe he was little better. He didn’t know.
Balti stopped outside the house. He didn’t like thinking about the past. At least not that part of it. You moved on. He opened the gate and walked between flowers lining the path. The grass was cut and the beds weeded. It was a nice house. His mum had done alright and she deserved her happiness. Everyone deserved to have some kind of happiness. Who cared if Bob was a former copper? None of it mattered when you got old because you should have your bit of peace and quiet. It showed there was justice in the world and gave everyone else something to look forward to, knowing that things could turn around.
He flashed back to his mum battered and bruised, and when the old man left Balti remembered her sitting in silence, and he remembered thinking that she had turned into a witch. The expression on her face said it all. Her face cracked in half and she went all spastic. She’d been like that for a year, not looking after herself and crying all the time. She began to smell and he was ashamed of her. Didn’t invite his mates round any more.
Then she suddenly goes back to being his mum. Has her hair cut and buys some new clothes. Just like that. She said she was a better person for it because she’d been through the mill and got rid of old rubbish. Sometimes he wished the old man would stroll up cocky as fuck and Balti would put him in Emergency along with McDonald and all the other cunts who didn’t show respect. He was big enough. All grown up and filled out, through the courts when he was a kid for all that juvenile nonsense. He smiled. When you had fuck all else going for you then blokes like him were better off than most, because at least you had your fists. That was something.
Up down, up down, making sure the paint covered evenly and filled in the odd crack, maintaining a steady flow. A big oblong of pure matt white with a cut of gloss to frame the south side of the room. The wall was straight and the work steady. The ceiling might be a bit tricky because it was covered in small shards of hanging plaster, but he’d take his time and dip the brush into all the nooks and crannies. Harry was into the rhythm listening to a DJ crack half-funny jokes in between a blend of lightweight guitar sounds and classic semi-hard rock. There was a cassette Will had lent him and he would play it when he finished the wall. The paint was going on a treat and the minutes slipping past. The room would look smart once it was finished. He was going with the motion of the roller. These were the best days, when everything went to plan.
His only regret was that his old mate Balti couldn’t seem to sort out his head. He’d been signing on for months now, and while he felt bad for him, Balti needed to get his finger out. When you went back to nicking stereos from cars you were playing a loser’s game. He was no snotty-nosed hooligan sciving off school. If he was going thieving, then he should be thinking big. Either that or find a job. Breaking into cars was for kids and junkies.
Harry laughed and wondered if his dream of last night would come true. They’d been back on that Mexican beach and it seemed they’d settled in for a long stay. They were living a lazy life swinging back and forward in their hammocks and had given up on the all-night raves. That last bit of aggro with the riot police had been well out of order. You went abroad to get away from all
that. Balti had been spending a lot of time in front of the small mirror he carried in his rucksack. He seemed lovesick. The focus of this interest was the village school teacher. Harry hadn’t noticed her before and was surprised to realise she looked like Karen. It wasn’t Karen, he knew that well enough because Will was a mate and Balti wouldn’t shaft his mates, but when he’d been on the psychedelics he looked across the beach and saw her there talking with the kids, her face shifting shape, and for a few seconds she was the spitting image. He wondered where Will was. Over the sea in Jamaica sitting in a shanty town with Scratch Perry blowing his mind, leaving Karen to educate the people.
It was late and Harry was walking home alone, stopping when he saw a light on the front porch of their hut. Karen was swinging back and forward in his hammock talking politics with Balti. He closed his eyes and listened. He was floating gently. She was telling Balti that he should fight back. Look at the Zapatistas and what they had achieved. Nobody could say they weren’t real men. Maybe the real men were the men who spoke up and didn’t get conned the whole time. Balti was nodding his head and Harry smiled. It was all words and his friend was like a kid in the classroom with a crush on the teacher. He waited for his best mate, his old friend the Balti king of West London, to reach over and hand Karen an apple. Standing in front of the class grinning at the blackboard. Karen was giving a lesson on English rebels, from the Diggers to the Suffragettes, to the streetfighters of Cable Street and the Poll Tax Rebellion, rows of skinny kids in the background asking whether it was true that Henry VIII had died of the clap.
Harry was carving his name into the desk with a clasp knife as Balti dozed next to him, head in his hands. His old man had been rioting the night before and his mate had a black eye. The history teacher was telling them about the Industrial Revolution and factory conditions before the formation of unions. They weren’t interested. They were kids in The Shed, packed in tight so you could take your feet off the ground and let the mass of people carry you up and down the terrace. Every so often the old bill would form a wedge and try and get into the middle of The Shed and chuck a few of the young herberts out, but when the place was full they didn’t have a chance. The whole end was having a knees up as it piled down the terrace taking the coppers with them. Nipple helmets bobbed over the heads of the crowd and were thrown towards the dog track.