Tommy took a stroll around the water’s edge while his old man stayed put. He rewound his memory further back; to what had to be a decade or so ago now.
A Christmas spent on a friend’s bush property down near the area that the Aussies referred to, with their laconic literalness, as the ‘Snow’. After a late breakfast, he and the old man had marched up a scrubby brown knob of a hill that was a mile or so from the property. At first, his old man had matched him stride for stride but his breathing became quickly more ragged as the climb went on. Mick pulled the pin three quarters of the way to the top, he was bent over double, raggedly trying to suck in air that his tobacco battered lungs wouldn’t let him access. It had jolted Tommy. The experience had been a palpable reminder of the passage of time. His once nimble footed, quick moving father debilitated and hitting such a relatively low wall. Neither of them made any reference to the event but it was indisputable evidence of both Mick’s physical decline and of the incremental passing of the torch between them - the old stag and the young one. At the reservoir Tommy had taken time out to look back towards Mick’s resting spot and had felt a swell of sad protectiveness for his father. Mick prided himself on his abundant resilience; it was a badge of honour to him. But, nobody beat the clock.
He had pushed the thoughts away and was brought back to the now by the keening peep of the resident kestrel. He immediately looked for it and there it was, circling just a little to the left of where he had seen it before.
The old man looked bright-eyed on his return and Mick managed to get to his pins without any assistance or the offer of it.
They went back to his place and watched a DVD of Chinatown - they were both film noir boys, it was his old man who had introduced him to the genre, both the movies and the books.
It was a great film, a young, slim, hard-edged Jack Nicholson taking on the big boys and losing, the drama played out under the Californian sun.
All in all, he thought, it had been a damned fine day. His dad was off to the races this weekend and Nev had called him to let him know that he’d be keeping an eye on the old bloke - thank God, he thought, for willing, clandestine minders. Lee would be here anyway and Tommy had bought tickets for a hometown band that were on the verge of cracking the big time. They were a decent enough listen although not exactly the Clash at the Apollo. But, Lee rated them, and it would be a nice change of pace from the Crown and the local blues ensemble.
Pasquale was into the swing of it now - enjoying the rhythms of the refuge despite sharing a room and despite the non-negotiable demands that the place made on his time. Five other kids were presently in there with him, which made the joint two shy of being a full house.
He was sharing a room with a big red headed silent kid, Frankie, who the girls and Neil had nicknamed Lurch. In the next room to theirs was Al, a little mouthy jockey of a kid from down in the Midlands somewhere. He was teased mercilessly by the two girls who scathingly and repeatedly referred to him as ‘pin dick’. In the single room was Neil, a slightly discomforting, tall, out there, seventeen year old gay kid who provided most of the laughs in the place and finally, the two girls themselves; Jess, a big titted blonde, who loved to prance around the refuge in her underwear and thrived on any melodrama and, finally, the Queen of the joint, Kat, a slightly Goth looking, older girl. She was smart with a whip like wit and she was tough too, a real package. Pasquale had noticed that even the workers were a little circumspect with her. Kat burned brightly most of the time and had, thankfully, taken a shine to him, often referring to him as ‘her little cutie’. But, cloud could quickly block out that sun and then Al or even poor Lurch copped it. She had a mouth that could bubble paint.
He’d settled in with the others kids quickly, a couple hours of sussing each other out and that was it, sorted. The staff seemed pretty OK too, Wendy slightly over did the clucking mother hen bit but she knew when to back off and you could have a laugh with her. Rod was a big lazy fucker who spent most of his shift in the office either on the phone or on the computer playing backgammon or chess. There was a younger guy working there too. Colin. He had plenty of energy and always spent the first hour of his shift trying to corral them out of the refuge to do some social or recreational activity - a real pain in the arse. The guy did a lot of flirting with the girls too, which both of them readily lapped up, playing him to the max. Neil had caught his eye a couple of times when Colin was plying his charm with Kat and Jess. Neil made no pretence of the fact that he thought Colin was a wanker and, he had a point.
Pasquale was surprised at how cool he was with Neil but maybe that was because Neil himself was cool. His mum had had a couple of gay male friends who had come to the house when they still had dinner parties and, for that matter, when she’d had a few wilder parties too. It was Kim who had shown him the paper folding and, at the weekends, he’d taken him and his mum out to galleries. He’d liked Kim - he was upbeat and chill, the best boyfriend his mum had never had. He’d been sure that she had been a little in love with him too.
Still, that was years ago now.
The staff had done this goals thing with him and they were trying to set down an education programme that would get him into a local sixth form college, specialising in art and maybe history. Wendy had explained that it was do-able, if he committed himself. He needed some qual’s though and he knew that he still had a lot of catching up to do.
He invariably met up with Junior in the late afternoons and they rode the packages to the Barrington, regular and as smooth as. He had the money stashed in the refuge but it was risky and vulnerable there, he could have asked the staff to keep it for him maybe but they would ask questions - £500 plus. No way would they take that at face value, not even that dopy bleeder Rod.
He’d decided to stash it at his mum’s, his room had access to the attic, it would be right enough there. Not this weekend though he was having a break from her - let her think about that a little bit too.
She’d called him on the Friday asking him if he still wanted to stay over but there wasn’t much coming back when he said no and that stayed with him for a while. He did a run with Junior on the Saturday morning and then he went out with the refuge crew for ten-pin bowling and pizza. Two more runs on the Sunday and he nearly had seven hundred in the bin.
Junior had been back with him to the ref ’ a couple of times and had been much more impressed with Jess’s curves than he had been with Neil’s arch confidence. Neil spun Junior out and, both times, had quickly bailed, rolling his eyes at Neil’s prancing and preening. Jess had asked him if Junior was single and he had told her that he wasn’t. He didn’t want her knowing any of their business. Neil lamented Junior’s fake relationship.
‘Hung like a horse too I bet,’ Neil had said.
Jess then mimed some fellatio and both the girls and Neil had fallen about with laughter. Pasquale had felt himself blush, which had brought out another volley of laughter till Kat chided the other two to leave him alone. Neil answered, ‘yes Mum’ then gracefully stood up, executed a pirouette and flounced off into the kitchen to make him self another coffee - the fucker was a caffeine addict and seemed to get by on six hours sleep a night.
Pasquale spent the next hour in their company relaxed and inert, watching transfixed as Kat braided Jess’s hair. It was as if he had been given the keys to a strange, strange land.
Darrin had struggled to stay put at the op post on the Friday, Mac had left about seven to enjoy the delights of The Admiral and that was it really. Another three hours watching deadbeats of different ages killing time refining the art of doing fuck all. He knew that a few of the crew were hitting town tonight and he’d promised to catch up with them later on but they’d be pie-eyed by the time that he landed. Besides, it was Leeds tomorrow and he was definitely up for that, some dancing and a very uninhibited larger woman - spot on. He felt the stirrings of an erection and briefly kneaded his cock a couple of times as the light and the sound of some music spilled out of The Admiral. Despite Mac’s
advice he could feel his interest in this start to ebb - too much of the same thing and too many hours on the job. Twelve hour days, four times a week plus a straight shift on top. His old man had always stressed the need for rest, albeit in the context of training. But, he’d never listened to him, as far as he was concerned, the body was an instrument to be bent to his will.
His mobile rang and it was Young, the smooth sergeant who’d liked his attitude.
‘Got the number off your desk sergeant, he said you probably wouldn’t mind when I told him what it was about.’
Darrin immediately felt the buzz and yeah yeahed him along.
‘I know you’ve been up there in the flat a fair bit and now Mac’s embedded, we can do with your energies elsewhere.’
Darrin struggled to hold in his impatience.
‘Seeing that you brought it in, I wonder if you fancy a couple of shifts down at Dalton’s flat. I’m fine tuning that with my guv’ next week and we could do with somebody with keen eyes down there. You in then Constable?’
‘I’m in Sarge…in like Flynn.’
Young laughed, ‘good man - I’ll be in touch and soon.’
He resumed his post and the next two hours flew by, Mac unlocking the door a little after ten.
Darrin told Mac about Young’s call and Mac nodded along with that little half smile of his.
‘Maybe they want you as a new recruit, fancy it like?’
‘With fucking bells on.’
‘Might mean a move away though son - hard to work undercover where every dealer knows yer first name and yer star sign.’
Hmm, moving away didn’t sound too bad, must be plenty of places for a near intermediate, salsa dancing undercover cop to ply his trade. He laughed a little at himself and Mac smiled at him with his eyes.
Darrin jerked his head to the widow. ‘How did you go then - owt doing?’
‘Yeah, not too bad - loyalties were lightly made and no doubt would be quickly taken away too.’ Mac saw that Darrin was puzzled, so he filled in the gaps for him.
‘A couple of the regulars wanted me to stay and do some after time. I had to plead an early shift. The wankers could just about get their heads around that, the idea of somebody having to bail out cause they got to get up early for work.’
‘You have a chat with Johnstone too?’
‘Yeah - only with Pete though, not with Chris. We had a game of pool, mostly grunts from him but he slipped in a couple of questions about my workplace. Subtle as a kick in the nuts he is. Dwayne was in there too, of course.’
He was? Fuck, Darrin had missed it - maybe during the call or when he had gone for a piss.
Mac didn’t comment on the omission, ‘yeah, he had a bit of a lengthy chat with the Johnstone inner circle, plenty of meaningful nods and no smiling faces. It looked like it was all business to me - scrawny fucker was drinking orange juice! Dedicated to his craft is that lad.’
Darrin took that in but had nothing to add, his mind drifting back to Young’s call and the prospect of bouncing around the luscious blonde. He said his goodbyes and headed home not even bothering with the boozer. The call had given him enough buzz and he’d save it up for tomorrow. Trish had been giving him that look again. He reckoned Barnesy was up for a turn and, if so, that would have his full blessing.
Nev had called him the day after the old man had rocked back home from the horse-racing weekend. Mick had had a dizzy spell on the Sunday morning when they were strolling through the town centre. Nev said that the old man had been a little out of it, incoherent and disoriented for a little while. Tommy had felt real concern at the news, Nev was not the kind of guy to overstate it.
He’d gone up to see the old man on the Sunday evening taking Lee round for a catch up chat. The old man seemed as right as rain and even a little jaunty, although that could have been down to seeing Lee. His old man liked Lee because he was the only one of the gang that Tommy had grown up with who had any whiff of the alternative about him.
They’d shot the breeze for a couple of hours - music and politics with minimum nostalgia, it was always all now and tomorrow with the old man. His dad never got misty eyed about the past even with a slew of malt whiskeys inside him. There had been no renditions of Danny Boy in the Cochrane household. The old man had declined his suggestion of going out to the pub, both Mick and Lee were not particularly enticed by the fact that it was crib night at the Bull.
He had thought about popping round again today but that would be two nights on the bounce and the old boy needed his space to recharge the batteries. He gave him a quick call to let him know about Glasgow. When he did, Mick reminded him that he’d already told him about it yesterday and that was that.
Tommy called Donna from work the next day and they agreed to a spot of lunch on the Friday. After he hung up he thought that maybe he was giving her mixed messages. But, what the hell, she was worth testing the water with and, according to both Donna and Sonny, the kid was as happy as Larry at the refuge. In his mind that was confirmation that he was more than ready to leave the bloody nest. The next morning he met Sonny at a bleary eyed pre-dawn at the City’s refurbished, dog’s bollocks railway station and they caught the speed train up north. The train got them up to Glasgow bang on the timetable and they took a taxi across the City and made it to the venue just after the 9.30 kick off. Luckily, the first speaker was still wrestling with the Power Point and nobody took any notice of their slightly rushed entrance.
Tommy enjoyed all of the speakers but the stand out for him was a tough looking runt who had a near impenetrable local accent that was as harsh as a sack of broken bottles being thrown down a stairwell. He had lively eyes and a scar that ran from under his chin to the half-lobe of his left ear. Kenny Lawson was the poster boy for his home city’s Community Initiative to Reduce Violence scheme and his was a very convincing and inspirational story arc. Years of agro riddled bullshit with a reserved bunk bed at the local big house. Up until the time that Kenny, who was leader of one of city’s bigger gangs, had been introduced to the option of the scheme and had been given the choice of that carrot or the stick. Kenny had had an epiphany of sorts, he’d embraced the opportunity and was now employed as a street based youth worker. He was now reborn as a slightly ravaged apostle on the coal-face, spreading the message to the younger lads. Tommy imagined the movie, a young Robert Carlyle as the lead.
Before the lunch break a big bluff American cop talked about the American pilot scheme. He had showed a short DVD bolstered with some dead pan, hard-arsed anecdotes and some encouraging statistics re the scheme’s impact on recidivism. The Jock cops picked up the baton after lunch with a film of more gang members from the north and the east of the city, the lads talking about what it meant for them to get opportunities for work and training. Interestingly, the scheme ran with the notion of it being natural to be in a gang but it reached out to give individual members alternative path options that could lead away from the cycle of boredom, exclusion, turf wars and hard earned reps. Coppers, youth workers, local government, teachers, social workers had all pitched in.
As one of the speakers noted it was about the whole of the community being prepared to commit to cultural and attitudinal change. As Kenny had succinctly said, ‘it’s ahl of urs prahblem.’
They hung around and schmoozed a little after the last speaker had brought it to a close. Both of them felt more than a little inspired by the day and they were keen to make the time and effort to swap cards with other professionals, chatting between themselves all the while about dragging a version down South. They could both taste the challenge and the possibilities.
On the journey home Sonny’s head was hitting his chest before they crossed the border and Tommy was only a few minutes behind him. Estelle picked them up at the station and they dropped him off at the flat. Despite the late night, he was up at six the next morning, wide-awake and feeling energised. He had an early morning workout at the Bodyworks gym and he was at his desk before nine. Pauline dropped in a
nd asked him about the day and she was in good spirits too. They’d made it through to the final round for the buckets of cash Community Lottery grant. Tommy speculated about whether he could/would stay at the Centre if the work with Sonny got off the ground, but he’d keep that up his sleeve for the moment. He didn’t want Pauline to think that he was contemplating pissing off and maybe there was a way of juggling the both. He knew that Corrine wouldn’t mind taking on some of his hours.
It was a warm day, up in the seventies, more like summer than spring, and the warmth of the day mirrored and fed the bounce that he felt in his step.
That night he had fun cutting a rug with the old man. Mick was on good form, lacerating the banks and their role in placing private property out of the reach of the common man, scorning the idea of the self regulating, organic market. He had hammered it a fair bit, half a dozen Guinness’s or so meant a crash in the old man’s spare room. The early morning traffic woke him up before seven, much heavier now than it had been when they had first moved in here some thirty odd years ago.
Ch, ch, changes alright and guaranteed to keep on coming.
Tommy had the literacy/employment group this morning and Bones had scored himself an interview for a store man position at a warehouse, which was located near the old docks next to the gentrified Quays. So they would have a chat about interview techniques, see if he could get the cheeky little prick to focus for more than a minute. Bones was keen though and it was good to help him get a shot. Maybe this would be a significant step away from the dross. His mind went back to King Kenny of the Northside, he’d turned it around and Bones could too.
He nicked some of the old man’s smokey bacon and had a quick fry up. Mick was no longer an early riser, very early into his retirement he’d given reign to his night owl patterns. Tommy picked up the car and headed straight to the Centre, he was slightly on the nose in the clothes department. But, he’d do, Donna would have to put up with Tommy au naturelle for their lunch date.
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