Colin made a mental note to ask Stiggy to tape it for him once he got his cassette player fixed. A Ramones tape Brian made for him a few weeks earlier had got caught up in the mechanism and was now inextricably wound up inside it, having snapped off when Colin tried to pull it loose. He would need to take a screwdriver to the cassette player and open it up to get the remaining tape out, a job he wasn’t particularly looking forward to.
Colin picked out a few more records for Stiggy to play. The Tube Disasters EP, singles by Anti Pasti and The Exploited he was already familiar with, and a few others he chose because their sleeves looked interesting. After playing them, Stiggy picked up an album by Crass with what looked like a blow up sex doll on the cover.
“Oh fuck off, do you have to put that shit on?” Colin asked, shaking his head.
“Yeah, I want something a bit longer.” Stiggy unfolded the cover and took out the record to put it on the turntable. Colin sighed and shuffled further onto the bed so he could lean his back against the wall. He decided the next time he went to Stiggy’s bedsit he would take some of his own records along with him, show Stiggy what he was missing out on.
While the woman on the Crass album screeched through the first song, Stiggy pulled open a drawer and took out a roll of sandwich bags and a half-litre can of Evo Stik. He tore a bag from the roll and held it out to Colin.
Colin smiled. “Don’t tell Brian,” he said, and leaned forward to take the bag.
Stiggy shook his head and smirked. He tore off another bag and rolled down its edges, then balanced it on his knee while he poured a large dollop of glue into one of the corners. He passed the can to Colin and breathed into the bag, massaging the glue-filled corner between his index finger and thumb. His eyes glazed over.
Colin poured a small amount of glue into the bag and lifted it to his mouth. He glanced over at Stiggy as he took a few tentative breaths, saw he was already away with the fairies. He thought about ditching the glue-bag, hiding it under Stiggy’s bedcovers. Stiggy wouldn’t know any different. Then he decided to take a few more breaths, just to see what the attraction was.
Colin closed his eyes and sighed, concentrated on the rustling sound the plastic bag made as it inflated and deflated. It seemed to echo, sounding impossibly loud. Crass echoed too. Their music darted around the room like hummingbirds looking for an escape from Stiggy’s bedsit, the screaming woman chasing them with a buzzing chainsaw. Crass seemed so much better than Colin remembered them being before. Maybe it was because the hummingbirds taught them how to play?
As if they had somehow heard Colin’s thoughts, Crass decided they were going home and left behind just a regular ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk as the hummingbirds pecked away at Colin’s skull.
Colin opened his eyes. Stiggy stood before him, waving his arms around in a blur. Long yellow teeth stretched down from Stiggy’s mouth and curled around his chin. The hummingbirds scattered away with a flutter. Stiggy’s teeth retreated back into his mouth.
“You have a good one?” Stiggy asked.
Colin looked around him, unsure of his location. He shook his head. “Fucking … hell,” he said. He handed Stiggy the dried up glue-bag and glanced at a clock by the side of the bed. An hour had passed that he had no memory of. The Crass record had finished long ago, the record player’s stylus stuck in its lead-out groove. Stiggy walked over and lifted the tone arm, silencing it with a loud thrrrrup. He lifted the record and flipped it over, put it back on the turntable.
“You want some cider?” Stiggy asked over the jangling guitar intro. “It’ll keep you buzzed longer.”
Colin shook his head. “Nah, I feel a bit wrecked as it is, so I reckon I’ll just get off home.”
“You sure? Glue makes you crash if you don’t top it up with booze.”
“Nah, you’re all right. I’ll get a can of beer from home or something if I need to.”
Stiggy shrugged. “Fair enough. See you at The Juggler’s Rest tomorrow then, yeah?”
Outside, the prostitute approached Colin again and asked if he was looking for business. Colin smiled and shook his head.
“No, sorry.”
4 It’s All Done by Mirrors
Colin leaned against a wall outside The Juggler’s Rest while he waited for Brian to arrive. He looked down at Stiggy, who sat on the pavement by his side, breathing into a glue-bag. Colin didn’t know how Stiggy had the nerve to do it right there, out in the open where anyone could see.
“Look at my shoes!” Stiggy shouted. Fucking hell, look at my shoes!” His eyes were wide and staring, and the glue-bag flopped around in his hands as he gestured wildly at his trainers.
“Yeah, very nice,” Colin said.
Stiggy raised the bag to his mouth and spoke into it, still staring at his trainers. “My shoes have got magical powers. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Colin sighed and shook his head, wondered if that was what he had been like himself at Stiggy’s bedsit the previous night. He reached into his leather jacket pocket for his cigarettes, and was about to light one when he thought about the solvent fumes in the air around him. He didn’t know if they would be flammable or not, so he decided to be cautious and took several steps away from Stiggy first. He took a deep drag and looked down the empty street. No sign of Brian yet, and he was already fifteen minutes late. No sign of the girls either.
He turned his attention to a poster displayed in the window of The Juggler’s Rest. A hand-drawn, simplistic doodle of a nun brandishing a crucifix in a suggestive manner advertised the evening’s entertainment. Welwyn Garden City’s pranksters in revolt The Astronauts present an evening of folk in hell, it promised, for an entrance fee of fifty pence. The poster didn’t inspire Colin with confidence, and if Becky and Kaz hadn’t said they would be going he would’ve given it a miss and gone to The White Swan instead.
“All right, Col!”
Colin turned away from the poster. Brian strode toward him, his leather jacket flapping open in the wind to reveal an Exploited T-shirt beneath it.
“About fucking time,” Colin said. “We’ve been here ages.”
“Yeah well, I’m here now aren’t I?” Brian pointed at Stiggy. “What the fuck’s he doing here? Talk about fucking gooseberries.”
“Never mind Stiggy, what’s that fucking stink?”
Colin leaned closer to Brian and sniffed. A flowery, chemical smell mixed with tobacco smoke assaulted his nostrils, so potent he could almost taste it in his mouth. He wafted his hand under his nose in an attempt to disperse it, but the smell lingered, overpowering him.
“Borrowed a dab of me dad’s aftershave, didn’t I?” Brian said. “Got to make an effort now and again, haven’t you?”
“Smells like you used the whole fucking bottle.”
Brian grunted. “Any sign of them birds yet?”
“Not seen them.”
“You checked inside?”
“No, you have to pay to get in tonight. There’s a band on.”
Brian looked at the poster in the window. “An evening of folk? Sounds crap.”
Colin smiled. “Yeah. When them birds get here I reckon we should fuck off somewhere else with them.”
“Yeah, maybe. Let’s go see if they’re inside. If not, fuck it. We’ll wait half an hour, then get our money back and go down The White Swan.”
Colin nodded at Stiggy, who was mumbling something into his glue-bag. “What about him?”
“Just leave him there, he’ll not know any different when he’s in that state.”
“Yeah, but what if some coppers see him?”
Brian shrugged. “Who cares?”
“Nah, I think we’d best take him with us. You hold his arms while I get the glue off him. They’ll not let him in with that.”
* * *
Just inside the doorway, a man dressed in black sat behind a small table.
“Evening, lads,” the man said. He picked up a lidless Quality Street tin and rattled loose change around in it. �
�Fifty pence to get in.”
Brian put a fifty pence coin down on the table and pushed through a door into the bar. Stiggy followed him without paying. The man looked at Colin.
“Fifty pence each, that is. You paying for your mate then?”
Colin sighed and shrugged. He unzipped his leather jacket pocket, took out a pound note and handed it to the man, then followed Brian and Stiggy into the bar.
A few local punks and older hippies sat around small tables placed in front of a make-shift stage area near the toilets. A tall, thin man with long hair threaded cables across the carpet and taped them down, getting everything ready for the band. Colin nodded to a few people he recognised and headed for the bar to join Brian.
“Any sign of them birds yet?” Brian asked.
Colin shook his head. “Not seen them. Where’s Stiggy?”
“He went in the bogs, probably getting glued up again. He’d better not get us chucked out before we get our money back.”
The barman approached and they ordered a pint each, then took them in search of a spare table to sit at so they could watch the entrance door. They skirted around the long-haired man in the stage area, who was positioning a microphone stand to the right of a small drum kit. All the tables immediately in front of the stage area were full, so Colin and Brian headed into a small secluded area in the corner. Becky and Kaz sat there, sipping from glasses of Pernod and blackcurrant. They both smiled and waved.
“All right. Been here long?” Colin asked. He put his pint down on the table and sat down opposite Becky.
“No, not really,” Becky said. She sat up straight in her chair and pulled down her pink mohair jumper to smooth out invisible creases. Colin stared at her green fishnet stockings and nodded absentmindedly.
“Budge up,” Brian said, and squeezed himself between Becky and Kaz. “You fancy getting off somewhere else after this?”
Kaz shook her head. “No, we want to see the band. We’ve never been to a gig before, and we already paid to get in.”
“What, never?” Colin asked. “How come?”
Kaz shrugged and looked away.
“Kaz’s dad won’t let her,” Becky said, “he says it’s too dangerous. He’d have a fit if he knew she was here.”
“That’s just daft,” Colin said. “We’ve been to loads and we’ve never seen any trouble.”
“So far,” Brian said.
* * *
“What the fuck are we doing here?” Don asked, looking at a crude drawing of a nun in the window of The Juggler’s Rest.
“There’s a fucking punk gig on tonight,” Trog said. “Word is that student cunt I battered the other night will be there and I want to have a word with him, see if he knows anything about Ian.”
“What, you reckon it was him that did Ian over?”
Trog laughed. “Nah. He’s all talk that one, but he might know who did. Here, did I tell you he pissed himself when he saw me?”
Don looked at Trog and smiled. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, straight up. He turned round, saw me, then fucking pissed his pants.”
Don shook his head and laughed. “Mate, I wish I’d been there to see that. Fucking hell, what a classic. Come on then, let’s go and see what the cunt’s got to say for himself.”
* * *
“That’s the cunt there,” Trog said, pointing from the bar. “The one with the bleached sticky-up hair, looks life a fucking scarecrow. That’s his mate, he’s probably weak as piss too.”
Don nodded and took a sip of lager. “The bogs’ll probably be our best bet. More secluded, less chance of being interrupted by the other yetis.”
While Don spoke, the student punk turned and locked eyes with Trog. He stared for a few seconds, open-mouthed, then looked away.
“You see that?” Trog asked. “The fucking cunt just gave me a right look.”
“Fuck him,” Don said, “he’ll get his soon enough.”
* * *
The long-haired roadie finished setting up the band’s equipment and picked up a Sainsbury’s carrier bag that was propped up against a wall behind the drum-kit. He reached inside and pulled out a twelve inch record with a black and red cover, then walked up to the nearest table with it. He leaned over to talk to the people sitting there, a pair of hippies in their late twenties, and when one of them nodded he handed over the record and took some money for it. He moved on to the next table.
“Anyone want to buy an album?” the man asked when he reached Colin’s table. He held one out for them to see. Its stark black and red cover image showed two stencilled figures, a businessman and a court jester, staring at each other across a diagonal divide.
Colin read the lettering printed around the edges of the record sleeve and saw it was by The Astronauts, the band who were playing later. He took the album from the man and flipped it over to look at the song titles printed on the back. The first track was something about seagulls, the second a Dixieland blues song.
“Nah, you’re all right, mate,” Colin said, shaking his head, and put the record down on the table.
Becky leaned forward and picked it up. “How much are they?” she asked.
“Three pounds,” the long-haired man said.
“Giz a look then,” Brian said, and snatched the record from Becky’s hand. Kaz leaned over to look at it with him.
“You want to buy one?” the man asked.
Brian shrugged and handed him the record back. “Nah, not really.”
“Okay, fair enough. Catch you later, yeah?” The man turned and walked away to try his luck at the next table.
Colin finished off his beer and looked toward the bar. The two skinheads were still standing there, staring at him. One made a gun from his fingers and pointed it at Colin, then raised it to his mouth and blew imaginary smoke from it. Colin looked away.
“You want another drink?” he asked Becky. Becky smiled and nodded. Colin turned to Brian. “Get the drinks in, yeah? I’m just off to the bog.” He took out two pound notes and gave them to Brian.
Brian sighed, then rose to his feet. “You coming to help me carry them, Kaz?”
“See you in a bit,” Colin said, nodding to Becky.
Stiggy stumbled out of the toilet door just as Colin approached it, and staggered toward the bar. Colin went inside, frowned at a strong smell of solvents, and headed for one of the two cubicle toilets. After his experience in The Queen’s Head he didn’t want to take any chances, and bolted the door behind him.
He lifted up the seat and urinated into the toilet with a sigh. He zipped up and wiped his hands on his trousers, then slid back the bolt and opened the cubicle door.
The two skinheads scowled in at him from the doorway.
Blood rushed to Colin’s face. The earth lurched beneath him. He reached out for the cubicle wall to steady himself and gasped for air. His eyes darted from one skinhead to the other.
“What do you want?” Colin’s voice came out with a squeak.
One of the skinheads, the short one who had attacked Colin in The Queen’s Head, took a step toward him. “What do you know about our mate?” he asked in a gruff voice.
Colin took an involuntary step back and felt the toilet bowl press against the back of his legs. The short skinhead stepped into the cubicle. The taller one stood guard in the doorway, staring in. Colin wondered what his chances of pushing past them both and escaping back into the bar would be.
“Er … you what?” Colin asked.
The skinhead grabbed Colin’s leather jacket and pulled him out of the cubicle. Colin lost his footing and stumbled. The skinhead held him tight, pulled him back to his feet and dragged him across the toilet. He swung Colin around to face him, pressed him up against a wall, and raised a fist. It hovered before Colin’s face, ready to strike.
“I said, what do you know about our fucking mate?”
The taller skinhead stood behind him, a look of fury on his face. He clenched his fists and puffed out his chest, his eyes blazing.
&nb
sp; Colin felt his knees weaken. His hands shook when he held them out before him.
“Look, I, um …”
“Well?” the short skinhead asked, and pulled back his fist.
Colin flinched and closed his eyes. “I don’t know nothing,” he said, quickly. When no blow came he opened his eyes. “Why, what’s happened?”
“One of our mates got done over. We think you know something about it.”
Colin shook his head. “Look, I …” He swallowed hard to clear his dry throat. “I don’t know nothing about it, honest. It wasn’t me.”
The short skinhead laughed. “Yeah, I guessed that. But I reckon you know who did do it, and I want you to tell me. Now!” He pulled back his fist again.
“Look, mate …” Colin began, holding up his hands. He heard the toilet door open and looked toward it. Brian and Stiggy stood in the doorway, looking in.
“You all right there, Col?” Brian asked.
The two skinheads looked around. The short one released Colin and stepped away from him. They both turned to face Brian and Stiggy, their fists clenched by their sides. Colin sidestepped away from them toward the urinal.
“Is there a problem?” Brian asked, looking at Colin.
The two skinheads looked from Brian and Stiggy to Colin and back, then glanced at each other. The short one shook his head slowly.
“No problem here, mate. We were just having a chat, weren’t we?” He glared at Colin.
“Is that right?” Brian asked. Colin shrugged.
Brian walked up to the urinal, keeping his eyes firmly on the two skinheads the whole time. Stiggy stayed by the exit, and when the two skinheads walked toward him he held the door open for them.
“Fucking yeti,” the taller skinhead said under his breath as they left. Stiggy let the door close behind them.
“What was all that about?” Brian asked.
Colin shrugged. “They said one of their mates got done over, they wanted to know if I knew who did it.”
“You didn’t tell them, did you?” Stiggy asked. He looked toward the closed toilet door.
Punk and Skinhead Novels Box Set Page 5