“No skinheads,” the woman replied, and started to close the door.
“Hold on,” Trog said. He wedged the toe of his boot in the door frame before she could close the door fully. “What do you mean, no skinheads?”
“No skinheads,” the woman repeated, pushing against the door. She frowned when Trog pushed back.
“What, our money isn’t good enough or something?”
Trog’s fists clenched. He could feel the anger building up inside him. He pushed his way into the hallway and glared at the woman.
“We only want a fucking room for the night, you old bag.”
“Leave it, Trog,” Mandy said. She placed a restraining hand on Trog’s arm. “If we’re not good enough we’ll take our money somewhere else instead.”
“Yeah, but it’s not fucking right is it? Who the fuck does she think she is, the fucking queen or something?”
“I know, but there’s nothing we can do is there? And you don’t want to get arrested again, they won’t go so easy on you next time.”
Trog frowned, then nodded his head in surrender. The last thing he wanted was to be arrested in Cleethorpes when he was supposed to be at an Attendance Centre in Shefferham. He knew what the penalties were for not having a valid reason for taking his punishment. He glared at the woman as Mandy pulled him back through the door. The door slammed behind him, and he heard bolts being drawn on the other side.
“Fucking witch,” Trog said, picking up the suitcase.
While they stood in the front yard deciding what to do next, the woman placed a hastily scrawled cardboard sign in the window declaring No Skinheads.
3
Later, they were walking along the beach parallel to the sea. Trog kicked an empty Coca Cola can ahead of him, while Mandy walked by his side staring down at the sand. They were both feeling down, but cheery nods and waves from skinheads they passed went a long way toward lifting the heavy gloom from their minds.
“Fuck it,” Mandy said. She looped her fingers around Trog’s forearm. “We’ll just have to sleep out somewhere. I doubt we’ll be the only ones anyway, so it’ll be a right fucking laugh.”
Trog came to a halt and dropped the suitcase down onto the sand next to him. He stared deep into Mandy’s eyes and smiled.
“Yeah, I guess. I just wanted it to be perfect, that’s all.”
Mandy slipped the camera strap from her wrist and placed the camera on top of the suitcase. She took hold of Trog’s braces, one in each hand, and drew him close.
“Listen, it will be,” she said. “Look around, what could be better than this? We’ve got the whole fucking town to ourselves, have you ever seen so many skinheads in one place? No fucking two-bit landlady is going to spoil this weekend for us.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Fuck it.”
Trog placed his arms around Mandy’s waist. His hands strayed down to fondle her buttocks as her mouth sought his and their tongues entwined. He broke away abruptly and bent down, put his shoulder to her waist and lifted her up. Mandy’s legs swung wildly before him, her arms flailing against his back.
“Put me down,” she screamed, amid bouts of laughter.
“No chance,” Trog said. He spun around on the spot and made her squeal even louder. “Let’s go for a fucking paddle.”
Trog strode toward the sea, holding tight onto the back of Mandy’s legs to stop her from squirming off his shoulder. When he reached the sea edge she squirmed even harder and cried out.
“No, put me down! I didn’t bring a towel.”
Trog waded into the lapping waves. He ignored the cold water rushing into his boots, and kicked up sprays of salty water with every step. He stopped and looked down at the murky water below. Scummy detergent bubbles floated on its surface.
“You want me to put you down?” he asked.
“You wouldn’t fucking dare.”
“Oh yeah?”
Trog jerked his shoulder to shuffle Mandy from it, but she clung on tight. He crouched down and fell hard onto his knees in the water, using the momentum to swing Mandy forward. She dropped on her arse with a big splash and screamed when she hit the water.
“It’s fucking freezing!”
Trog laughed. He planted his hands in the sea, scooped up water and splashed it into her face.
“Oh, you fucking bastard, I’ll get you for that!” Mandy laughed and kicked out her feet, sending a torrent of sea water surging toward Trog.
Trog crawled forward on his hands and knees in the water. He grabbed hold of Mandy’s thrashing ankles and held them still below the surface. He crept closer and prised her legs apart so he could crawl between them. His hands travelled up her fishnet stockings until they were round her thighs, then up beneath her denim mini-skirt toward her knickers. His fingers toyed with the elastic around her waist.
“I’m all wet now,” Mandy said.
Trog grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
His hands continued their journey up Mandy’s body, until she flung her arms around his neck and pulled him close. Laughing, she twisted violently and unbalanced him. Trog toppled over her leg into the water with a splash. He rolled over onto his back, his arms flailing in the water as he tried to keep his mouth above the surface. He spluttered when he didn’t quite manage it, and coughed violently when he got a taste of the foul liquid. Mandy stood up and ran back to the beach, still laughing.
Trog waded after her, water dripping from his outstretched arms. He was grinning when he reached her.
“Now look what you did. It’s all right for you, you’ve brought spare clothes with you.”
Mandy laughed. “Well you should’ve thought about that before you chucked me in the sea.” She pulled the cloying shirt out from her stomach and scrunched it up to wring water from it. “I’m fucking freezing now.”
Trog bent down and unlaced his boots. He kicked them off and tipped sea water out of them. He removed his socks, hopping from one foot to the other, and wrung them out. He slid his braces down and stepped out of his jeans, dropped them on the sand, and took off his shirt. Goosebumps erupted over his arms. He rubbed them to warm himself up.
Mandy bent down to the suitcase and laid it down flat, then put the camera down on the sand beside it. Her thumbs caught the clasps on the suitcase lid and released them with a dull thud. She lifted up the lid, reached inside, and pulled out a V-neck pullover. She held it out to Trog.
“Here, put this on,” she said.
Trog looked at the offered item of clothing and frowned. No way was he wearing that in public, he’d look a right cunt and would never live it down if Stew or Don saw him in it. He shook his head.
“It’s too small, it’ll not fit me.”
“It might, it’s quite stretchy.”
“Nah, I’ll be all right.”
“You sure?” Mandy asked, still holding out the pullover.
Trog nodded. He clasped his arms around his chest and shivered. Mandy shrugged, and dropped the pullover back into the suitcase. She straightened up and crossed her arms over the tails of her shirt. She lifted it over her head, then dropped it onto the sand.
“Wahay,” a young skinhead nearby shouted. His mates soon joined in with chants of “Off, off, off, off.” Trog glared at them.
Mandy smiled. “In your dreams,” she said. She bent down and took a new shirt from the suitcase and draped it over her shoulders, then fastened two of the buttons in the middle to hold it in place while she took off her bra. She dropped the bra on top of the wet shirt, then shuffled her arms into the sleeves of the new shirt and fastened the remaining buttons. Finally, she pulled down her denim skirt, peeled off her fishnet stockings, then frowned at the young skinheads who were still ogling her.
“Trog, can you come here a minute?”
“What’s up?” Trog asked.
“Can you hold that shirt up while I change my knickers?”
Trog smiled. “Yeah, no problem.”
He picked up Mandy’s discarded wet shirt and stre
tched it out before her while she slid out of her knickers and replaced them with new ones. He looked over the top of the shirt to get a good view for himself.
“Done,” Mandy said, snapping them into place. She bent down to the suitcase and reached inside for a pair of bleached denim jeans.
Trog frowned when he saw what she was planning to wear. They didn’t look anywhere near as easy to get his hands into as her earlier choice of clothes.
Trog stretched out his wet clothes on the sand and sat down beside them, hugging himself for warmth. Mandy sat next to Trog and wrapped her arm around him, drawing him close. Trog nuzzled his face against her chest, excited by the soft feel of her unencumbered breasts.
They sat for half an hour, watching the waves lap across the sand and listening to the seagulls argue amongst themselves over discarded food. When it came time to part, they did so reluctantly. Trog made no attempt to hide his erection from Mandy as he gathered up his clothes and struggled into them. They walked hand in hand along the beach, climbed a short flight of steps back up to the main road and soon came to the dome-topped Winter Gardens building.
The festival wasn’t due to start for another twenty minutes, but already a large crowd had gathered around its entrance, forming a disorderly queue. A paved pedestrian area opposite had become an unofficial parking space for dozens of scooters, and Mandy led Trog eagerly toward them. Dotted around the edges of the pedestrian area were several benches, all of them occupied by groups of skinheads waiting for the venue to open but unwilling to join the crush around its entrance door.
Doug and Sheila sat on one of the benches, with their Union Jack adorned Lambretta and similarly adorned helmets chained up nearby. They waved to Trog and Mandy as they approached.
“All right, mate,” Trog said. He walked up to them and took up a seat next to Sheila. Mandy joined him after another quick admiring walk around the scooter.
“Yeah, not bad,” Doug replied. “Just waiting for kick off. I want to hit the dealer desks before the first band comes on, fill in a few gaps in me collection.”
“What do you collect?” Mandy asked.
“Mostly late sixties Trojan, but anything interesting really.”
“I had to sell most of mine a few years ago,” Mandy said. “You know how it is when you’re skint. But there was a few I just couldn’t part with, no matter how bad things got.”
Trog sensed the sudden change in Mandy’s mood, and sought her hand.
“Maybe you could get some of them back in there?” he said, nodding toward the Winter Gardens.
“I can’t really afford to.”
“Don’t worry about that, I’ll pay for them.”
Mandy looked up sharply and smiled. “Really?”
Trog shrugged. “Yeah, no worries. They’re only old records, it’s not like they’re the fucking crown jewels or something.”
4
Inside the Winter Gardens, after Trog paid their entrance fee and they had their wristbands attached, Mandy led the way to the dealer tables. The spring in her step, and the smile on her face, were back again as she glided toward the first table.
On a wall behind the table, the long-haired dealer had strategically placed his most sought after records, and Trog gaped in amazement at the prices. One of them was an album he had seen at Mandy’s bedsit earlier that morning, with a price that would probably pay for a week’s rent. Trog wondered why Mandy had never cashed it in.
To his relief, Mandy ignored the records on the wall after a cursory glance, and made straight for a cardboard box containing singles with an advertised price of £2 each. Even this seemed a high price to pay for old records to Trog, especially when brand new singles were less than half that price in the shops.
Trog took up a position next to her and put down the suitcase. He looked at the records she had selected and totted up the total in his head. His eyes drifted to a box of books, tattered old paperbacks with titles like Skinhead, Bootboys, Terrace Terrors, and Skinhead Escapes. He picked one up and flipped it over to read the blurb on the back.
“How much are your books, mate?” he asked, flicking through the book’s yellowed and dog-eared pages.
“Five pounds,” the dealer said, taking money from another customer.
“What, for all of them, like?”
The dealer laughed. “No mate, five pounds each.”
“Fucking hell, what a rip off. Here Mandy, have you seen these? Fucking five quid each, he wants for them.”
Mandy glanced at the paperback Trog brandished, and turned her attention back to the records. “They’re a bit far fetched anyway.”
“What, you’ve read them then?”
“Yeah, everyone did back then. I used to nick them from Woolworths when I were a kid. They’re probably still at my mum’s flat somewhere if she hasn’t thrown them away.”
“Might be worth having a look for them at that price. I wouldn’t mind having a read of them myself, but I’m not paying that much for an old book. It’s a right fucking rip off.”
“Yeah,” Mandy said, half-heartedly. She spread her selection of records out in front of her. She had five, and she slipped them out of their sleeves in turn and inspected them, blowing dust from their grooves.
“Is this many okay? You don’t mind buying me them all?”
Trog shrugged. “No, if they’re the ones you want, just get them. Here you are mate,” he said to the dealer. “Tenner for the lot, yeah?”
The dealer scooped up the records and counted them, then nodded. Trog handed him the money and pointed at one of the higher-priced records on the wall.
“Here mate, who’s that one over there by, the one that’s thirty quid?”
When the dealer turned to look, Trog slipped the paperback down the front of his jeans and pulled his shirt over the top to hide it.
“Harry J Allstars,” the dealer replied, turning back to Trog.
“Ah, okay,” Trog said. He turned away and picked up the suitcase. “Don’t like them, they’re crap.”
“You daft sod,” Mandy said as they walked away. “What if he’d seen you? It’s not as if you couldn’t afford to buy it, anyway.”
“Fuck him. Money grabbing hairy bastard, ripping skins off like that. It says thirty pence on the cover and it’s not even fucking new. So anyway, what are we doing now then? Get some drinks, or what?”
“Yeah, sounds like a good plan.” She handed Trog the records. “Here, stick these in the suitcase, I don’t want them to get broken.”
* * *
Everyone else must have had the same idea, because the bar was four-deep with skinheads and Trog needed to elbow his way to the front of the scrum around the solitary barman to get served. He held up a ten pound note and waved it like a flag until he caught the barman’s eye.
“Pint of lager and a pint of lager and black, mate,” he shouted over loud music blaring from speakers positioned either side of the stage area.
He took a drink in each hand and pushed his way out of the crowd around the bar, trying not to spill too much of the contents as he was jostled. He found Mandy sitting at a table, her head bobbing and her foot tapping in time to the music playing. Trog put the drinks down on the table and Mandy took a quick sip before turning to face him. She moved her mouth close to his ear so he would be able to hear her over the music.
“You fancy a dance?” she yelled.
Trog frowned and shook his head before shouting back, “Nah, it’s not really my sort of music, and I wouldn’t know how to dance to it. You can if you like, I’ll just stay here and watch.”
In reality, Trog just wanted to have a quick read of his new book, to see if it was worth going back for the others. But he wasn’t much of a dancer, except to Oi music. And from what he could see of the people dancing near the stage, their moves were a lot more intricate than the leaping around and shoulder-barging he was used to.
Mandy frowned and took another sip of her drink. She stood up, said something that Trog didn’t quite
catch, and skipped off onto the dance floor, where she soon lost herself in the gyrating crowd. Trog took out the paperback and began reading. He folded back the cover so he could hold it in one hand while his other was busy with his pint glass.
When Mandy returned twenty minutes later, red faced and out of breath, she slumped down on a stool and took a long drink from her lager and blackcurrant.
“I’m fucking knackered,” she said, loosening the top three buttons of her shirt. She sighed, and wafted the shirt collar a few times to circulate air around her sweating face and chest. “I don’t think I’ll be able to keep this up the whole weekend.”
Trog finished off the paragraph he was reading, folded over the corner to mark his place, and put the book down on the table before replying.
“Why do you think I wanted to stay here? You should save your energy for when the bands come on.”
“So what do you think of the book?” Mandy asked.
“I’m just up to the bit where they go to the football match. That Joe cunt reminds me of Don the way he’s always going on about immigrants all the time. I thought you said they were far fetched? It seems okay to me.”
Mandy shrugged and reached for her drink. “Some are better than others. In one of them they had to fight this kung fu gang.”
“Yeah?” Trog smiled, and held up his hands in a Bruce Lee pose. “Hoo-wii-yah!” he exclaimed, and chopped a hand down on the paperback. “So did they win?”
“Can’t remember, it was years ago when I read it.”
“I bet they did. Just boot the Chinkies in the bollocks while they’re busy waving their arms about like a bunch of soppy cunts. That’s what I’d do anyway.”
Mandy laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure you would.”
A loud blast of feedback made Mandy spin around on her stool to face the stage. A band were getting ready to start, a six-piece with two black members; one on saxophone and the other on bass guitar. They started their sound check, and Mandy rose to her feet to get a better look at them.
They were young, not much older than Trog. The singer and lead guitarist were skinheads, the others all wore black suits and trilby hats. When they started to play, it was with a slow ska beat, and Mandy nodded her head in approval. Her arms started to swing, as if they had a mind of their own.
Punk and Skinhead Novels Box Set Page 12