By t’ end of January the public workers were out on strike an all. It didn’t seem right that I had to crawl out of bed every dark, filthy winter morning at 5 a.m. and take two buses across town to t’ Corona depot in Seacroft while Mitch snored on. Nor that us Corona men had to work through t’ foul weather while others swanned about wi’ nowt to do. It irked me that half-sis and I wor t’ only breadwinners – her at Schofield’s and me out on t’ Corona round.
In such brass-monkey weather sales of pop plummeted, but it took just as long to finish t’ round. I couldn’t feel my feet in my boots, couldn’t hold the coins between my raw fingers or grip the bottles easily. In t’ worst of it the pop would freeze to slush in t’ bottles. Out on t’ round, the roads wor dangerous, especially where t’ side streets hadn’t been gritted, or paths salted, and carrying five or six bottles in t’ crook of one arm, as we wor wont to do, wor a skittish business. Somewhere undercover, like Leek Street Flats – or any block of flats for that matter – wor a blessing, even wi’ t’ wind howling up the stairwells. It wor also a little easier cos no one wor buying. Pop worn’t a winter drink. What’s more, folk wor stashing their dosh. What little dosh they had. Eric said that in Liverpool, even t’ gravediggers wor out on strike – no one wor being put in t’ ground. Bodies wor stacking up.
I found Mrs Husk huddled in her chair beneath her grubby bedding, her swollen feet peeking toward t’ mournful hiss of t’ gas fire. Lord Snooty lay in t’ blanket folds on her lap. Even though it wor late morn, Jack Frost still clung to her windowpanes. Mrs Husk didn’t want no pop in this weather – just her bottle of Bell’s to keep her own pipes lubricated.
Mid-morning tea wi’ Lourdes wor a grateful pit stop. Lourdes didn’t have much going on neither, and she wor happy to let us linger and thaw out our feet. She wor saying that over in Bradford the ‘poleece’ had given t’ prozzies who worked at top end of Lumb Lane an ‘amneeesty’ so long as they wor only out working at times ‘dem poleece’ agreed. ‘What punter go walking into dat bear trap?’ She looked at me wi’ a devilish glint. ‘You’s a growing boy – you’s proper girlfriend material now, ain’t he Eric?’
‘Or boyfriend,’ Eric said.
Lourdes’ face popped. ‘Bwoy? You mean you’s a battybwoy?’
‘A what?’
I glowered at Eric, miffed that he’d mouthed off. Lourdes slapped and wiggled her massive backside. ‘Battybwoy?’
‘I dunno, I mean …’
‘Cos if yous is, I knows dis man, Errol, married wi’ two daughters, only his dumb wife she don’t know, or if she does den she even dumber, but Errol sure has a taste for dem skinny white boys.’ Lourdes cackled. ‘If you’s wanting Errol he always at the Gaiety …’
‘Thanks for the offer, Lourdes, but …’
‘You knows what Errol say? He say, once you ga wi’ black you never go back. Dat’s what he always say.’ Lourdes laughed like it wor t’ funniest thing in t’ world ever. ‘Ain’t dat duh truth!’ She laughed ’til she doubled over, as if it wor too painfully funny to endure, but she couldn’t make it stop.
When I came in from work, Mitch collared me. He wor scraping burnt toast into t’ sink.
‘You’re t’ main breadwinner in this house right now.’
‘I’m giving Mother half my money already as keep,’ I replied, pulling off my boots and setting them down on t’ sheet of newspaper Mother had laid out for t’ purpose.
‘While I’m on strike, you need to give her most of it.’
I tried to push past him. He stretched out an arm, barring my way.
I said, ‘You went on strike, not me.’
‘Solidarity, lad. It’s called workers’ solidarity. We’re a family.’
‘What about Mand? Is she giving most of her wages an’ all?’
‘She’s got that coming.’ He looked down at the toast. ‘Happy now?’
One clear, cold night when Mitch and Mother wor out at a concert at the Batley Variety Club (on my workers’ solidarity dosh, I shouldn’t wonder), I snuck over to Radclyffe Hall. On t’ way I ducked into a public lav that wor always unlocked, even at night, and picked up some young’un about my age. He wor very thin and pasty-faced and all bony elbows and knees.
We found an empty house in a short terrace that wor earmarked for demolition, boarded up at the front, but left open at the back. We clambered in through an unlocked window and headed to a rear upstairs room. The yellow glow from t’ sodium backstreet light shone through t’ bare window. He said he didn’t like to kiss. He went down on his knees and unzipped my dick and starting blowjobbing me.
While he wor going at my dick like it wor a stick of Blackpool rock I took in our surroundings. I could see t’ room wor nicely decorated, and the house looked in good order. Couldn’t think for t’ life of me why anyone would want to demolish it.
At my feet, the lad wor wanking himsen hard and making slurping noises. I stroked his hair to chivvy him along. News had drifted my way that Gina wor out and about again. I didn’t want to get caught up wi’ her again, but I got to thinking that maybe if I did see her she’d lead me to Tad. I closed my eyes and imagined that this lad, who wor going at it hammer and tongs now, wor really Tad. Wi’ a sharp intake of breath I exploded all over t’ skinny lad’s face. Then he shot his load onto t’ floor by my feet, convulsing like someone having an eppy fit. I wor glad my dick worn’t in his gob no more, cos he might have bitten it off.
At Radclyffe Hall I found a proper commotion in full flow. Fazel, Camp David and Terry wor gathered in t’ kitchen. Fazel wor seated at the table, face like a sick griffin. As I came into t’ room he looked up at me wi’ bloodshot eyes. Terry wor leant against t’ stove, looking on, his thumb and forefinger under his chin like he wor solving a maths puzzle. Camp David wor sat beside Fazel, playing wi’ t’ fraying ends of his jacket sleeve.
Terry put me in t’ picture in his usual deadpan delivery, wi’ Camp David interrupting floridly. Turned out that Fazel’s mother and two sisters wor about to flee Iran for Egypt. His brother wor already in New York. So Fazel had picked this moment to come out to his family over t’ phone. The news went down like a body being dropped down a well. The next day his family publicly disowned him by placing an advert in t’ paper, and his father withdrew his support money.
‘They can do that?’ I said.
‘They’ve done it,’ Terry replied.
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked Fazel, arranging my face into what I hoped wor a suitably concerned look.
‘Don’t know,’ Fazel muttered. ‘Maybe I’ll join my brother in New York. In New York I will be free and no one and nothing can hurt me.’
‘New York?’ I said, wide-eyed.
‘New York! New York!’ trilled Camp David tunelessly. ‘I’m going to wake up with somebody who never sleeps!’
‘For God’s sake, this is real life, not a fucking musical,’ said Terry caustically.
Fate, I wor thinking, could not have dealt me a better hand. There would be a free room at Rad Hall. And the last person on earth who I thought might make that possible wor t’ friggin’ Shah of Iran. I could feel opportunities opening up. But course this worn’t a good moment to say owt.
Terry looked down at the floor and said, ‘Is that a semen stain on your boot?’
By early February Fazel’s home country wor filling up the news. The Shah had fled, and some religious bearded bloke wor being mobbed in Tehran like he wor a pop star. Some of t’ men in t’ crowds wor braying themsens on t’ bonce ’til they bled. I couldn’t help wondering what this wor doing to their brains.
Before leaving Radclyffe Hall later that evening I asked Camp David if he wanted to go out for a drink the following night. His eyes widened.
‘Just social, like.’
‘My dear, I wasn’t imagining for one moment you were asking me on a date.’
The next night I arrived outside Leeds Town Hall just as the clock wor striking nine, and waited, pacing along t’ wide steps to stave off t’ bitter cold. I hated anyone being late. Hearing the single strike of t’ quarter hour, I wor just about to give it up as a bad job when I spotted Camp David emerging from behind a departing bus over t’ road. He waved at me and trilled my name in a high-pitched squeal. As he neared he said, ‘My, look at you. You look a pretty scary sight in that black leather jacket and those boots.’
‘I could say t’ same of you,’ I sniffed, ‘for different reasons.’
He laughed heartily, like for all t’ world he wor pleased wi’ this. He looked like a transvestite hobo. He wor wearing a mangy old brown ladies’ fur coat that he said he’d picked up at Oxfam, a green bobble hat, black ladies’ gloves and, wrapped around his neck, a paisley-patterned scarf. This jumble-sale outfit wor completed by a large brown sweater hanging loosely over crimson loons and dark-blue Doc Marts.
It wor too early for Charley’s, so we decided to pop into t’ New Penny first. Barely had we taken ten steps when from across t’ street this goon started shouting and gesturing at us. He wor wi’ a group of four others who’d just tumbled out of a nearby pub. They looked like bulldog office-workers who’d been out on t’ razz.
‘Hey! Queer boy!’
Queer boy. Singular. They wor striding across t’ street toward us. There wor nowhere to run to, being so in t’ open, so we just stood there.
‘Well, lads, what have we got here? Quentin Crisp of Yorkshire?’
Camp David and I glanced at each other as if to say, ‘You will stick up for me, right?’
‘Are you a pouf?’
This wor directed at Camp David. It worn’t looking good. I cast about for exit options. I sized them up, the whole group, trying to decide how fit or fearsome they wor. I wor sure I could take on any one of them on their own, but as a gang …
‘I am proudly of that persuasion,’ Camp David declared.
Oh, friggin’ ’ell, I wor thinking, just throw yersen into t’ cauldron, won’t you?
Like any gang of jackals, one led t’others. The head jackal wor a small, thick-set man in every thick-set man’s clothes: brown leather jacket, dark office-suit keks, pale-pink open-neck shirt wi’ a wide collar. He’d probably taken off his kipper tie as soon as he’d escaped the office. Only a breeder, I wor thinking, would wear pale pink wi’ shit brown.
‘You people disgust me! Fucking shit-stabbing, fudge-packing queers!’
The bloke’s lips twisted open, baring his yellowed lower teeth. The others, all of whom wor taller and less thick-set than this gnashing mutt of a bloke, looked hesitant and confused.
‘Leave it,’ one of ’em wor saying. ‘Come on, leave it.’
Mutt man eyeballed me. ‘And what have we here, then? His jobby basher?’
I kept my eyes on t’ man’s chest and said nowt.
‘You know what your problem is, don’t you?’
Camp David bit both the bait
and
the hook. ‘Whatever my problem is, darling, it ain’t half as big as yours!’
‘What?’
Camp David’s tongue broke loose. ‘Nowt of yours can be half as big as mine, sweetie. Except maybe your gob. Only I use mine to better effect. In
and
out of the bedroom. You know what your problem really is? No? I’ll tell you, sweetie. I turn you on.’
The bloke did a little jig on t’ spot, and then his expression shifted.
‘Euufff. Do you hear that, lads? He thinks I’m turned on. Turned on? By you? Fucking filthy nancy boy. You should be thrown into t’ furnace wi’ t’ rest of your kind.’
I readied mesen for t’ braying that wor surely about to happen. His mates closed in, and seeing the one closest to me drop his guard, I slugged him on t’ chin. He tottered sideways, trying to steady himsen, then tripped over his own feet and keeled over. A gap opened.
‘Run!’ I yelled.
We pelted across t’ road in front of two cars, then zig-zagged through t’ shopping precinct streets and up an alleyway that dog-legged past a pub, finally coming out on Lower Briggate. Camp David stopped, one hand propping up a lamp-post, bent double, breathing heavily.
‘Wait! I think we’ve lost them.’
A young couple passed us by. She nudged her boyfriend on t’ elbow, turning her head to get a full gander, but he just kept steaming ahead like he hadn’t seen us. We walked the rest of t’ way down Lower Briggate toward t’ New Penny. Just before t’ railway bridge, Camp David stopped and turned to face me.
‘How do I look?’
His face wor gleaming and his eyeliner had smudged.
‘Just fine.’
He peered into t’ barred-up window of a jeweller’s shop, tidied his hair and righted his hat.
‘Thank you for defending my honour.’
‘Your honour? Ha! You’re t’ one that dropped us in t’ shit. I’m just happy they didn’t come after us.’
Camp David tucked his hand into t’ crook of my arm. ‘After that little escapade I need a stiff one. A drink, I mean. Preferably a gin and tonic. You buying?’
I grinned. ‘No, you are.’
We pushed through t’ saloon-style pub doors to find oursens facing a DJ wi’ a mic nearly kissing his tonsils who at that moment wor introducing Manhattan Transfer’s ‘Chanson d’Amour’. I would never have ventured into t’ New Penny alone, it being a brash, two-fingers-in-a straight-man’s-eye sort of place, but wi’ Camp David in tow, and wi’ t’ exhilaration of having dodged a braying, I wor feeling I could do whatever I wanted.
Seated beneath t’ DJ’s pulpit wor a line of busty middle-aged women, arms linked and singing along raucously. Otherwise it wor what I expected: a few tables of old codgers, a few younger loners standing about, waiting to be picked up or just staring at the ends of their shoes.
Seeing us, the DJ garbled summat about fuckin’ Sid and Nancy having just walked in, and one of t’ women doubled up wi’ laughing.
Camp David murmured in my ear, ‘Plain-clothes are in tonight.’
‘Sorry?’ I wor thinking he meant everyone else.
‘Those two, by t’ pillar, propping up the bar.’ He took off his hat and fur coat, which he tossed showily over a bar stool, then parked himsen on top of it. ‘Plain-clothes cops.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Darling, I just know.’
He looked at himsen in t’ etched mirrors behind t’ bar and patted his hair. The notion of plain-clothes cops in here wor a mite discomforting.
‘So what do coppers want wi’ this place?’
‘Us. All of us. They want to know who we are. So they can pick us out when the time comes.’ He leant into my ear and whispered, ‘You are eighteen?’