Blue Collar

by Danny King

‘Really? Mine neither,’ I replied, picturing both of our dads coming down here in their vests and slippers to have a go at everyone and pull us from the crowd.

  ‘Our bloody tea’s on the table an’ all, you little bastards,’ they’d say, then clip us around the ears and drag us both home for our fish fingers.

  Half an hour passed and I was just starting to believe that Hugo’s dad really was nothing special when a call came up from the rear and the coppers in front of us shouted back to confirm their numbers.

  A few seconds later an inspector poked his head over their shoulders and looked directly at us.

  ‘Is one of you Hugo Baker?’ the inspector asked, to my complete and utter amazement.

  ‘Yes, that’s me,’ Hugo confirmed as quietly as he could.

  ‘Have you got any ID on you?’ the inspector then asked, so Hugo pulled his wallet out of his pocket and held his Oyster photocard against the clear perspex shield for the inspector to inspect. ‘OK,’ he agreed, giving the coppers either side of him a pat, before disappearing again.

  ‘Fuck me, I don’t believe it. Just who the hell is your…’ I started to say, but I was cut short when my po-faced copper mate told me to step away from the shield and Hugo to step towards it.

  ‘Just hold your fucking horses, John, I’ve seen this one already,’ I warned them both, grabbing Hugo and hanging on to him until I’d double-checked something with the copper. ‘Are we both getting out of here or are you just letting him go?’

  ‘No, it’s both of us,’ Hugo reassured me.

  ‘Oh yeah? And how d’you know that?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I did say, didn’t I? I told my dad we were both in here so I’m sure he told them to get us both out,’ Hugo reasoned.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. And I’m sure on my birthday and bank holidays he kisses my picture goodnight at bedtime just before he kisses yours,’ I agreed, my fingers still tightly wrapped around his arm. ‘But let’s just check first before we go rushing off anywhere, shall we?’

  We looked at the copper behind the perspex shield and put the question to him again, and I have to say his answer didn’t exactly inspire me.

  ‘Let go of your mate’s arm and step away from the shield if you please, sir. I won’t tell you again.’

  I see.

  ‘No, wait,’ Hugo said. ‘He’s with me. You’re meant to let us both out.’

  ‘Look, sir, you can either come out or you can stay where you are. It’s all the same to me,’ the copper replied, fully sympathetic with Daddy’s little boy and his mate’s plight.

  Hugo looked at me and scratched his chin. That’s right, it certainly was a tricky one and no mistake, but miracle of miracles, Hugo came up with the perfect solution.

  ‘Terry, let me go through and speak to this inspector and I’ll get him to let you out too.’

  ‘And what if he says no?’ I asked, on the off-chance the inspector didn’t give two flying fiddlesticks about me.

  ‘Well then, I’ll just call my dad again and get him to put in a word for you too.’

  ‘Why don’t you just give him a call now?’ I said, but I already knew it didn’t make any odds. Hugo had been given a green light, so whatever else came of today, it was pointless us both hanging around here indefinitely. He knew it and I knew it. Personally, given the choice between being trapped somewhere alone or being trapped somewhere with Hugo, I would’ve happily taken alone every time, except in circumstances where I needed to use him as food… And when Charley was already out there somewhere.

  ‘Come on,’ Hugo tried again, tapping my hand.

  I chewed all possible considerations over as he nodded hopefully at me, before reluctantly releasing the fucker. Well, what else was there to do? Let Charley hear I’d held him back for no good reason? She’d see right through it.

  You small-minded, jealous control freak. You didn’t trust me? You thought I’d cheat on you? With Hugo? Like I did to Nigel? How could you think that?

  No, it was an unhappy set of circumstances and no mistake. A no-win situation, I believe they call it. All I could do was act reasonably and hope it caught on. I let go of Hugo and ground my teeth.

  ‘All right, but you talk to that inspector. Explain the situation to him and get him to let me out too,’ I told him, and Hugo nodded enthusiastically like it was a done deal.

  ‘No worries geezer,’ he said, holding out a fist for me to knock knuckles with. I played along just this once, just to get out of here, but made a mental note to jump in front of a train if I ever found myself playing potatoes or comparing cocks with Hugo on a regular basis. ‘Wicked, bruv, just you hang tight.’

  Hugo turned and told the copper he was ready and I could see from the copper’s face just how choked he was at having to let this particular one go.

  A moment later, the shields parted like a super-fast supermarket doorway, and Hugo was sucked through. They closed right behind him again and Hugo disappeared from sight, leaving me in the firing line of a dozen pairs of suddenly suspicious eyes.

  ‘Fucking copper’s narc,’ I heard someone say behind me, while others started to talk loudly behind my back about how they couldn’t remember seeing me protesting at the pigs at any point during the last half an hour or so.

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ I groaned, my mind awash with wishes, the most prominent of which was the one where I was wearing a comedy rucksack stuffed full of spring-loaded boxing gloves.

  The coppers in front of me had precious little sympathy either. They now hated me as much as the twats behind did, lumping me in with Hugo as some spoilt little brat who was born with a silver spoon in his gob and a ‘get out of jail free’ card in his top pocket.

  ‘Seriously, mate, I don’t know him. He’s just my girlfriend’s… friend. The one with the bloody lip who you let through earlier.

  Remember?’ I explained to the copper, but he didn’t look like he cared much. Like he’d said, it was all the same to him. I just had to sit tight and wait until he was told by his superiors to let me out.

  So that’s what I did. I waited. I waited and waited and waited. And eventually the inspector gave the order and I was let out.

  Six hours later.

  Along with everyone else.

  21 Done by the pigs

  I went home when I finally got out. I’d had a text message a few hours earlier from Charley letting me know that they were all in the Workers’ Social (where else?), but I just wanted to get away from London, get away from the crowds and get away from people. I felt like punching something – or someone – and that’s not the sort of mood I could be around Charley in. I was starving hungry, miserably knackered, busting for a piss and so far from the end of my tether that I could actually see where the other end was tied.

  Had I walked into the Workers’ Social, seen them all happily tucked up and blissfully drunk and then got a welcoming cheer from that cunt!!!! Hugo, I think I would’ve fucking strangled the little bastard. Seriously. And it wouldn’t have been for not wangling me out of that mess with him – if he’d even tried. Or for sniffing around my girlfriend, or for causing me no end of small-minded, jealous, control-freaking anguish. All that was immaterial. I was beyond motivation. I would’ve simply strangled him because strangling him would’ve made me feel better. My fists were outraged that three of their best mates, my back, my legs and my poor old aching plates, had been made to suffer so much for so little and they were in no mood to need reasons. Any loudmouthed Mockney cock-smoker in a flat cap and Police sunglasses who stood up to give me a gleeful cuddle would’ve happily done.

  So I went home.

  I went home to protect Hugo. I went home to protect Charley. But most of all, I went home to protect myself. I went home. I had a load of chips. And I murdered a bottle of Scotch.

  It ruffled my hair all the next day that Charley had just pissed off to her swanky wanky pub without so much as a backwards glance. It didn’t matter that there was nothing she could’ve done for me once the inspect
or had given me the thumbs-down. That was beside the point. The point was she’d just gone off and enjoyed herself with her mates while I’d been boxed in that misery. And not just me, as it turned out. Simone had got caught in the Oxford Circus box too and had stood for six hours along with me and ten thousand others waiting for the last few cries of ‘kill the pigs’ to finally flicker out while Clive worried himself legless in the Workers’ Social over a Pad Thai and a couple of bottles of Chardonnay.

  Again, it didn’t matter to Simone that Clive couldn’t have done anything about her situation, it simply didn’t sit well that he’d abandoned her to fill his belly while she’d been marooned in the middle of all that mayhem. If you still can’t understand why me and Simone were so pissed off, let me put it this way. Imagine you were sentenced to hang tomorrow morning. There you are in your cell, waiting for the priest’s seven o’clock wake-up call, all last-ditch pleas for clemency turned down, with nothing but a couple of chess-playing screws to keep you company. Your family can’t do anything to save you, and equally they’re not allowed to be there to see you off, which must be as terrible for them as it is for you. Even knowing all of this, though, wouldn’t it still knock you in the chops if you subsequently found out that they’d all bought some chicken drumsticks and gone across to next door’s barbecue for the evening while you’d spent your last few hours on earth wearing out your slippers and listening to Mr Barrowclough ask which way the horses went again? Well, that’s kind of the way me and Simone felt.

  Charley phoned up at lunchtime to see if I wanted to come up and have a traditional Sunday dinner in Signed For! that afternoon, but I still didn’t feel like seeing her, Hugo or any of the rest of them.

  ‘You’re not mad at me, are you?’ she asked all indignantly, catching me by surprise and putting me on the spot.

  ‘Oh no, no, of course not,’ I blurted out automatically. I even went on to make up some bullshit excuse about how I’d hurt my foot in the crush and couldn’t walk on it in order to allay any suspicions that I was in a mood, only to spend the rest of the afternoon kicking myself for not just telling her the truth. That I was mad. That going on the march had been her stupid idea. That chucking bins at policemen or smashing Burton’s windows had nothing to do with the poor and needy in Africa. That not everyone had a rich daddy who could come to their rescue when they’d got themselves into trouble or buy them a house to save them from having to dip into their own fifty-grand-a-year salary. That Signed For! was a shit pub full of wankers. That Rocket Man Sauce sounded absolutely disgusting. And that I was fed up for the moment of being someone’s fucking novelty boyfriend.

  As you can see, there were a number of strands to my thoughts and I spent the day staring across the bar of the Lamb trying to knit them together into some sort of nonsense.

  ‘Not with your rich bird today, then, Tel?’ Tony the landlord nosed.

  ‘No, not today,’ I simply replied, giving him a scowl that stripped the smile clean off his face.

  Old Stan in the corner just nodded at that, as if he’d been there forty years earlier and knew the difficulties of crossing the twain only too well, so I sent him over a half of stout to show him my appreciation and we drank to our own silent thoughts.

  On Monday morning, CT made a point of looking me out and asking me how I was doing. I didn’t feel like levelling with him either so I simply shrugged and asked him if he could do us a favour this particular morning.

  ‘Sure, what is it?’ he replied, in all seriousness.

  ‘How many guesses you want?’ I asked, pushing the boom out of my face, before turning my back on Barrie’s camera and taking to the ladder with my tools on my shoulder.

  Naturally, I’d told Jason and Robbie all about my weekend on the ride into work that morning and they’d both agreed I’d been hard done by.

  ‘They’re just wankers you get on these things, you get them everywhere,’ Robbie had told us. ‘The football used to be full of ’em a few years back. Hooligans and firms and them lot, all shouting their mouths off and slinging seats at each other. None of ’em was ever interested in watching the game, they just used to come for the ruck. Fucking Football Factory twats, most of ’em. I couldn’t stand ’em.’

  Which was all well and good, but it wasn’t the ‘kill the pigs’ brigade I was annoyed at any more. They were just twats. Robbie was right. That was all they were and that was all they ever would be, certainly as far as I was concerned. I had no other expectations of them.

  No, most of my bitterness had moved on from them and was now swooping in large ambiguous circles around Charley’s shoulders. Not even Hugo’s, because I’d suspected him all along and hadn’t expected any better of him either – just Charley’s.

  I was annoyed at her.

  I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why, but equally I couldn’t shake it off either. I was annoyed at her. Like the worm who’d finally turned, or the poodle who’d had one too many silly fucking haircuts, I just felt like having a bark, pissing all over the furniture and taking a big bite out of the postman’s arse.

  I was annoyed at her.

  Halfway through the morning Gordon asked me to help him gauge up a footing we were due to move on to that afternoon. In layman’s terms, gauging up a footing meant running lines off the site engineer’s profiles to mark out where your corners should be and, most importantly, what height they should be built to. Footings are hardly ever poured flat so there’s usually one corner that needs building up more than the others or a dip in the middle of a flank that needs building out so that all four corners and walls are perfectly level with each other by the time the house reaches the DPC (damp course prevention) level. It’s just a question of adjusting the first few courses of brickwork or blockwork here or there to take into account and overcome any unevenness in the concrete.

  Like most things in life, this unevenness has a name. It’s called a ‘pig’.

  Your governor might say to a couple of his blokes who are about to build a footing flank, ‘That wall has a two-to-one pig in it,’ so that one of them will start at his end with two courses of bricks and slowly shave them away, while the other bloke will start at his end with one course of bricks and slowly build them up, so that by the time the wall meets in the middle, it’s at the same height all along. Naturally this is all gauged out and you’ve got marks and lines to work to, but that’s basically what’s involved in layman’s terms.

  And it might not even be a dramatic as a two-to-one pig. It might just be a one-to-one-and-a-half pig or even less than that. It doesn’t really matter. A pig’s a pig and you can’t build on a pig. If you try, you’re asking for all sorts of trouble. It might not seem that noticeable way down below in your footings, but by the time you get to your second storey or above, your house is in serious danger of tumbling over on top of any estate agent who tries to knock a For Sale sign into its front garden.

  A pig, even a slight pig, becomes more and more exaggerated with height. I mean, just look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. If the subby on that job hadn’t shown up with a busted theodolite I doubt we would’ve even heard of the town, yet here we are almost nine hundred years after the mayor first thought a bell tower might look nice in his front garden and he’s still got the builders in. Something tells me my Italian cousins are on a day rate for that particular job.

  But then, this is just what happens when you try to build on a pig.

  Which all led me to thinking about the pigs in mine and Charley’s relationship. There were so many that had been there right from the start, which we’d both tried to ignore. And they weren’t little two-to-one pigs either. They were whopping great inequities that we had no chance of making up in the joints. And the longer we went on, the more the cracks began to show.

  CT and his little camera crew came over to film us running lines between the datum posts and asked us what we were doing, so Gordon gave them a quick tutorial and pointed around the footing to show them where the various rooms and windows wer
e going to be before they turned the camera on me.

  ‘Sounds like a nice house, Terry. Would you like to live here?’ CT asked, presumably to try and prompt some sort of response out of me before the day was over.

  ‘This place?’ I said, looking around the various mounds of mud and clay. ‘I couldn’t afford this place on my wages. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t think I could afford this place as it is now, before we’ve even built the fucker, on my wages.’

  I half expected them to put down the camera when confronted with such language, but they just carried on filming, happy to leave the site’s bad language to whoever worked the bleeper in the cutting room. Blimey, he was going to earn his money on this programme before this day was out. Perhaps he could buy this fucking house.

  ‘I sense you’re in a bit of a prickly mood, Terry,’ CT said.

  ‘Oh, really, Captain Mind-Reader? And what gives you that idea?’ I replied. ‘Did you sense that in the pub on Saturday night while I was stood around twiddling my thumbs for six fucking hours?’

  CT didn’t say anything for about twenty seconds, presumably so that Tom Baker or Tom Hanks or whoever else they were going to get in to narrate this load of old nonsense could fill in the audience as to why I had the right steaming arsehole this morning.

  ‘Do you hold Charley responsible for what happened on Saturday?’ he then asked.

  I looked at Gordon, who was winding in his measuring tape with one eyebrow raised my way. I thought for a moment then turned to CT again.

  ‘You know what a pig is?’

  CT thought for a moment then asked if this was a trick question.

  ‘Do you mean the animal?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘No. And I don’t mean what your mates were shouting at the police on Saturday either. I’m talking about a pig in brickwork.

  Do you know what a pig in brickwork is?’

  ‘No,’ CT replied, so I pointed at the concrete between me and Gordon.