by John King
–I call him Punch, he’s such an ugly cunt. The rest of us are happy enough going down Rocket’s to pull a pig, happy to fuck some old boiler in the car park, but he won’t come in because you have to wear a shirt and trousers. Says the music’s shit. What kind of cunt is that?
–You know what, says the short-haired bird, her face red, blood boiling. You’re no oil painting yourself. He’s not ugly either. You should have a look in the mirror.
Her jaw shifts forward and for a moment I think she’s going to smack Dave, and I look at the smooth skin of a flat belly, the clenched fist. Get a compliment like that, a stranger telling everyone that you’re not as ugly as you thought, and you’re laughing. Well away. Can’t let Dave take the piss in front of strangers though, so I lean forward and slip a finger inside the logo of his Stone Island top, tell him it’s Mr Punch to the sort of greaseball who spends half his life under a sunlamp and soaks his hair in engine oil. I give the label a tug and he wobbles, eyes fixed on the buttons, the stretch of white thread, pounds and pence.
–Leave it out, he blinks, trying to set things in their rightful place. Okay. Mr Punch. Come on, leave it. I was only joking.
There’s days you have to let the opposition think they’re winning, go with the flow but stay staunch inside and bide your time, but there’s times when you have to make a stand. Dave’s face is frozen. He knows I’ll give the label a good pull, and even though it’s buttoned on I could do a lot of damage. Stone Island costs a packet and it’s the sort of designer gear Dave creams himself over. He loves his clothes more than life itself. You name it, this boy has the lot, expensive at half the price.
–Come on, Joe. Where’s your sense of humour? I was only mucking about. It’s this charlie, it’s blowing my fucking head off. My throat feels like it’s caked in sand. Feel like I’ve been licking a camel’s arse. Micky should be charging extra for this, but don’t tell him.
It’s not nice having your life stretched out on the rack, and just as bad for him being put in his place. I laugh along with the others and sip my drink. He’s been caning it recently, jamming the coke up his nose like he believes all that anthrax-in-a-suitcase propaganda, doom-and-gloom end-of-the-world prophecies, a glut bringing the price down so ordinary folk can get in on the act, taking it away from the inner London elite in their three-storey Georgian mansions and Victorian loft conversions, shifting it along the great arterial roads to the London country sprawl surrounding the capital. This is where you find the people, in the low-lying landscape of the satellite towns, the new-brick estates filling in the connecting villages and junctions, lining the trunk roads, the pubs full of eager young men and women tuning into satellite football, a St George Cross behind the bar, a free-for-all paradise where the property is cheap and there’s a chance to get ahead.
Dave is out on the piss seven nights a week, parading his labels in some sort of ponce routine, milking appearances. I look in through his shining eyes and spy the holes in his brain, a yellow block of rubber cheese pocked with craters, edged by mould, field mice nibbling at the edges. I look out of the pub window and see how he’s parked his car up on the pavement, black bodywork gleaming as the sun sinks, aerodynamic curves still dripping after a run through Khan’s Deluxe Car Wash, a line of white suds on the front bumper, begging some kid to run a key down the side. Dave’s doing alright for himself in a local sort of way, steaming along at a hundred miles an hour, system firing, but he’s bogged down with his HP stack system, a big pile of easy-listening CDs, stickers still in place, stuck in the trap but on time with his car repayments. Most people live on tick, but Dave pushes things to the limit. If he wants to put on a show that’s his choice, but I don’t want to see the bloke buried so deep he’ll never get out again. It’s the oldest trick going, the financial institutions following the company-store tradition, building up a debt that can never be repaid.
–What sort of music do you listen to then? the bird with razor-sharp eyes, who’s called Sarah, asks, moving over so she’s next to me, the faint touch of her tits on my arm.
Dave turns his attention to the other woman, her bleached hair a bit longer, a single stud in her ear. Chris is happy sipping his pint, raising his eyes when Dave isn’t looking. Chris is a happily married man. He’s a dad, a diamond, a man who likes a drink and a bite to eat. I fill her in.
–You’re right about vinyl, she says. You can feel the music better.
It’s the way she rolls the words around her mouth, the smell of her perfume. I know I’m in. Dave knows it as well.
–Forget Al Capone, now he’s Richard Branson.
The blonde next to him must be out of it, because she laughs and leans against his chest. It’s the drugs talking. We’re always taking the piss out of each other, but now he’s going public.
–Piss off, you, Sarah says to Dave, only half joking. You’re getting on my nerves. It was you who started on about music.
Dave turns back to the other woman.
–Sorry, he mumbles. It’s this gear. Blinding stuff, but I don’t know if I’m coming or going. Anyway, who are you telling to piss off, you cheeky mare.
–Wanker.
Chris checks his watch and says he’s off home for his dinner, hungry after trying to sell computer parts around the West Country’s trading estates. He hates the job, but gets a car, a small basic wage and commission. It’s a cut-throat business, full of chancers, but he’s doing okay. People trust him. First he was a robber, then he was a copper, swinging from one extreme to the other, and one day he just upped and left the Old Bill, said he’d had enough of dealing with scum, that the sick cases, the rapists, child molesters and wife batterers were making him look at people differently. He was seeing the worst of human nature and it was doing his head in. From now on all his attention was going on Carol and the kids. He’s a different person these days, real middle-of-the-road honest. Chris is the perfect husband. He says there’s no way you can keep order in this country, so why bother trying? He wants an easy life.
–Come on, have another one, Dave tells him. You’re hungry, aren’t you? It’s that time of night. Get a cheese roll to tide you over.
There’s a glass cabinet stuffed with rolls, cheese-and-tomato and ham-and-lettuce. They’re thick and tempting, lined with mustard and sliced onions. Chris loves that cabinet same as Dave loves his clothes. For Chris it’s taste, for Dave it’s the look, and I suppose for me it’s still music. This bloke eats and eats, stays thin as a rake. Dave says it’s because he’s got AIDS, but it’s how he’s built, something in his genes.
–One more, then I’m off, Chris smiles, and he knows it’s Friday night and he’ll be in here till closing, just as long as he gets some grub down his throat.
What he usually does is give Carol a ring and say he’ll bring home a treat, spare ribs and egg-fried rice from the Chinese, cod and chips if she’s in the mood for something more traditional. Or he could give Chapatti Express a call and order her a chicken tikka, grab a vindaloo for himself. The moped service crew deliver quick, the pop of their machines and the trail of curry fumes part of the late-night landscape.
–I’ll give the missus a ring, pick up a Chinese on the way home. She won’t mind. She likes me staying out. If she wants some chips and a pie, I’ll get her that. Whatever she wants. She likes the peace and quiet. Says I should go out more, but I like staying in and watching the telly. I’m tired when I get home and just want to do nothing, specially after I’ve been driving around all day, trying to con these brain-dead cunts into buying my gear. I could phone for a curry. A vindaloo would do the trick.
Chris loves spicy food. He takes out his mobile and does the business. Snaps it shut with a grin, licking his lips and draining the dregs of his pint.
–My round. Who fancies a roll?
We shake our heads and he goes to the bar. I wait until he gets served and follow him over. The landlord is pouring, and I pick up on the music again, Paul Weller’s voice coming through loud and clear. Weller has s
tayed true to his Woking roots and talks a lot about keeping that DIY ethic going even when he’s successful. It gives people a boost when someone like that stays honest. Too many people sell out. Take the shilling and say they’ve grown out of their ideals. The boys next to us are younger and would never have seen the Jam, don’t know what they missed.
–So the meet’s all set up on the mobiles, and Chelsea have got a good firm of three hundred. They take the local service into the city centre and steam straight into the named boozer. Somehow the Old Bill have got wind of it and are recording everything from across the road.
–How did they know that?
–Maybe they had a scanner, or there’s a grass, I don’t know. You can imagine they aren’t exactly pleased, and the Leicester firm haven’t even shown up, as per fucking usual. The pub’s empty.
–Northern tarts. Least they can’t get nicked if there’s no one there, can they?
–True.
Chris orders my Guinness and the two blokes nearest to him look at the tap. Some of the boys round here don’t like Irish beer, never mind that Slough has plenty of Irish blood.
–Fuck me, look at the arse on that.
I follow their eyes to a nice-looking girl in tight jeans.
–I’d give that a good service, I can tell you. Pump a couple of gallons of bunty up it any day of the week.
–What, a Paki? You’re fucking joking, aren’t you.
–Don’t care if it’s a fucking Scot. I’d do it no problem.
–Suppose so. Did you see that bird Ferret was with last week. Fuck me, what an old grinder. He knobbed it as well. That Ferret fucks anything that moves. Anything in a skirt, and that includes the Scots Guards.
–So what, says this bloke from the background.
–So what? You should be ashamed of yourself. Monster mash she was. Pure fucking monster.
–Come on you cunt, stop grumbling and buy us a drink.
–Same again?
–Yeah.
–Go on.
–Put a top on mine, will you.
–She wasn’t that bad, was she?
–I didn’t think so. Comes from Langley. Nice girl as it happens. Works at the airport.
–Sounds alright.
–She is. Come on, you mouthy cunt. You getting served or what?
–Hold on.
Chris’s paying for his drinks now and I lean in and grab three pint glasses. One of the blokes next to us recognises Chris.
–Alright mate? I didn’t see you there.
–I’m alright. Didn’t see you either. I’d have got you a drink.
–I’m in a round.
I go back to Dave and the girls, pass the drinks round, the two women talking, Dave placing his glass on the nearest ledge. Chris shakes his head, says he went over to Antwerp for the weekend once with that Ferret and the lanky bloke going on about Pakis. Dave asks if anyone fancies a toot and Chris shakes his head, says he needs a good night’s sleep, he’s taking the kids out to buy some football boots first thing. He looks out of the window and down the street, waiting for one of the women to include him in their conversation, probably thinking about his vindaloo. Sarah slips me a casual smile. She’s a looker alright.
–Come on, Dave says, when we’ve finished our drinks.
I follow him into the bogs. We go in the cubicle and he chops up the powder with his credit card, cutting us each a line, moulding coke in the same flamboyant manner as the kebab-shop boys carving their meat loaf. Dave makes me laugh. There’s a fair bit left in the wrap, and the thick gold ring on his middle finger and choice of drug doesn’t exactly go with the line of shit down the back of the bowl. I drop the seat and pull the flusher, tell Dave it puts me off.
–You fucking gay boy, he laughs.
He leans forward.
–Did you know, he says, after he’s filled his nose, that the bloke who invented the toilet bowl was called Matthew Crapper.
I laugh, help myself, feeling the effect at the back of my throat. He wasn’t joking about this charlie. It’s good gear. Shows he’s been building up some resistance if he can hammer this stuff all night.
–Straight up. His name was Crapper and that’s why they say you’re going for a crap when you’re going for a shit. Funny, isn’t it. What comes first? The real name or the nickname?
This bonehead in a bright YSL button-down gives us a look when we open the door and come out, rocking back from the wall where he’s been resting his skull in snot, mullered by half-eight, and I know he’s wondering whether to whip his knob away and have a dig. It takes a few seconds for the truth to work its way through the lager clouding his brain.
–Wondered what you were doing in there, he laughs, eyeing the silver foil. Mind you, there’s no queers round this way, is there? Wouldn’t raise their heads in Slough, the dirty bastards.
–The government’s got another gay rights law going through Parliament next week, Dave says, opening the door and standing back so I can get past.
–They’re not lowering the age of consent again, are they? the bloke asks, looking worried.
–No, it’s nothing like that, Dave says, shaking his head sadly. They’re making it compulsory now.
The door drifts shut and I can hear nervous laughter from inside the toilet.
–What do you want? Dave asks.
He leans in and orders.
–That bird fancies you. He could be right. He slows down and relaxes properly for the first time tonight.
–Do you want some crisps?
I shake my head, carry the drinks over to the window and line them up on the ledge, see Chris has his wallet out and is passing around pictures of Carol and the kids, playing happy families when he’s out with his mates. Dave stares at two teenagers sniffing round his car. He bangs on the window and they walk off. I laugh out loud, feel the charlie work its way in, start going on about all the new music worth listening to, running on for ages as I concentrate on the bones in the girl’s face, pressing against her skin.
It’s a short ride to Sarah’s flat off the A4, past the Three Tuns but before the trading estate, and we travel in silence listening to a programme on the radio, the skinhead driver tuned into a bombing raid, cheering the boys on as the fascists take a pounding, the big Union Jack logo of Estuary Cars plastered all over the window next to me. The path to Sarah’s front door is dark and I slip, try to disguise it, give up and tell her I’m pissed. We climb the stairs to the second floor, a new four-storey block with carpet in the hall and walls that shake when I close the front door too hard. There’s a fresh smell of paint and plaster inside, the rooms clean and bright under bare light bulbs, big windows picking up our reflections. Sarah goes into the kitchen and brings back a bottle of vodka. I don’t fancy another drink, but take the glass she pours to be sociable. Haven’t drunk vodka for donkey’s years. Can’t remember the last time. She goes for a wee and I walk over to the window and look outside, at an empty street and swaying tree, branch fingers shifting shape under a street light. Sarah comes back and we sit on the couch talking, having a laugh at Dave’s expense.
–That bloke loves his clothes, she says. I gave him some peanuts and one bounced down his front. For a minute I thought he was going to start crying. He was that scared it was going to leave a stain. It probably will, but I told him it would wash out, just to shut him up. No woman likes to see a grown man cry.
Dave’s always been like that. I’ve known him a long time, since we were little. He’s alright.
–He loves you, Sarah says. I can see he loves you like family. He takes the piss, and you let him wind you up too easy, it’s in your face, but if you needed him he would be right there to help you out.
Don’t know if that’s true. Never thought about it really.
–Me and my sister are the same. We’re always rowing. Once we never talked to each other for over a year, all because of something stupid that I can’t even remember now. But we’re close, would do anything for each other. She’s alwa
ys there when the crunch comes. That Dave is more of a brother than a mate.
He’s not my brother. My brother died years ago. Smiles hung himself from the rafters, up in the loft near his mum’s old clothes. Except Smiles wasn’t my brother either. He was my best mate. He was a simple kid, an honest boy who went mental. No, my brother died when I was born. He was my twin. I lived and he died. I never met him, but grew with him in the same womb. They say you can be hypnotised and taken back to when you were an embryo, but I don’t believe that, and it would be too hard even if it was true. I was the first one out, and my brother was left behind. He was stillborn. Never cried out and breathed the fresh air. You can’t change things, but I’ve never been able to work out why I lived and he died. It’s not fair, and I don’t believe in fate.
Dave’s not my brother.
–You know what I mean. He reckons himself, that’s all. Least that’s how he acts. The big mouths are usually covering up how shy they really are. It’s the quiet ones you have to watch. Acting cocky like that turns a woman off, but he’s harmless. My husband was quiet as a mouse, and he was out shagging everything that moved. One day he walked out and joined the navy. Haven’t seen him since.
It’s a shame. Women get a rough ride. I sit back and wait for the story to come.
–It was nearly four years ago now. We were happy for a while, then everything went wrong. It was money really. Trying to get by, both of us working. Life just got boring and he was off. At least I’ve got Jimmy. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened in my life. The sad part is he never sees his dad.
I feel bad for Sarah and her son.
–Colin was a good-looking man, a real charmer, but once he was married and had a kid, he gave up. Everything was too much trouble. He felt trapped. Like that was it for the rest of his life.