Then, not long before ten, this young’un came waltzing in like he owned the friggin’ joint, passing right by us and making straight for t’ lounge bar. A lanky, wire-haired lad wi’ his chin set a smidgen too high. Dora beckoned me close. I tipped my stool toward her and caught a full blast of her market-stall scent.
‘That one, who just sailed past us without so much as a how’s-yer-father, he’s one of Jim’s. I’ve seen them in here together. Jake, his name is.’
She pursed her powdered lids across t’ open bar toward t’ lounge-side bar stool where Jake had parked himsen. I kept my gaze fixed on him, waiting on him to look across our way. When he did, his eyes widened and flickered wi’ wary curiosity, like a startled deer. Then he turned away.
Dora wor saying, ‘I thought you knew?’
‘Knew what?’
‘That Jim picks up boys from t’ railway station. He picks them up, pays them. Takes them in sometimes. But then they move on, or get bored, or they steal from him.’
Her mouth fell open, showing her lipstick-stained dentures.
‘Well, I’ve never been taken in!’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise … I thought …’
I slid off my stool and pushed through t’ double doors and out into t’ street. I launched my boot into a waste bin. Then I picked it up and tossed it out into t’ road. A car driver parped his horn as he dodged around it.
The driver stopped and wound down his window and wor effin’ at me, so I gave him a V-sign and stomped off. I walked on, the city lights squinting through t’ knifing rain, passing the Poly where they used to have punk gigs, on past the Empress pub and Leeds Town Hall wi’ its dome imprinted against t’ sickly green sky, on through t’ precinct shopping zone and down Briggate toward t’ Corn Exchange. I wor all fumed up, wi’ no notion of where I wor going, no aim. I just walked.
It wor then that I spied her, striding along in a shiny black PVC coat, black fishnets and Doc Marts. Vaulting a pedestrian safety barrier and dodging the traffic, I called out, ‘Gina, hey, Gina!’ but she couldn’t or wouldn’t hear me. I skimmed along t’ gutter ’til I wor almost level wi’ her.
‘Gina! It’s me. Rick.’
She stopped, turned and eyed me haughtily. She’d changed her look again. Her hair wor back to black and all spiked up like a yucca plant. Her eyes wor two smudged coal-black holes in a white-powdered face, her lips and lids a bruised purple. She wor wearing a single glove, a studded dog collar and a small crucifix earring in her right ear.
‘Don’t you remember me? You wrote your number on my chest and …’
‘Of course I remember.’
Her gloved hand wor holding a dog lead. At the end of t’ lead, cowering in a shop doorway on his haunches, wor a man.
‘That’s Jeremy. You’re not to acknowledge him.’
‘Hi, Jeremy.’
Jeremy scowled skywards and whimpered.
I said, ‘Ain’t seen you at the FK Club lately.’
She snorted at the mention of t’ FK Club, then strode on, wi’ me dancing alongside, trying to keep up, ’til she suddenly stopped and frowned. Jeremy stopped also. She pointed at him and he made a couple of small monkey hops into t’ corner of a nearby bus shelter.
‘Who the fuck does your hair?’
I sifted two fingers through my locks. ‘My hair?’
‘If you want to be with us you can’t look like that. Like a nothing. Jeremy’s a hairdresser, or he’s trying to be. He could do something with that mop.’ She cast her pitiless gaze over me. ‘Something … radical.’
‘Sure, sometime … I’ve been meaning to …’
She pressed a gloved finger to my lips and then smiled, a blackberry-lipped smile that opened and shut like a poacher’s trap.
‘We’re going to Paradise,’ she said. ‘Coming?’
I tossed a coin in my head. It landed on ‘yes’.
Paradise Buildings wor a three-storey sooted brick warehouse on Bradford’s Sunbridge Road. There wor no windows at ground level, and those on t’ upper storeys wor recessed behind iron grilles. Opposite, more warehouse blocks descended steeply down t’ hill. Next to it wor t’ Paradise Chapel, now home, so said a sign, to Patel’s Electrical Repairs.
We came to a steel side door. Gina pressed two loose wires together, sparking a bell ring. I looked about while we waited. Beyond Patel’s, where t’ waste ground widened out, stood a discarded fridge-freezer and an old wicker chair. On t’ far edge of this rubble wasteland, where you came to t’ road junction wi’ t’ lower end of Lumb Lane and Bradford’s red-light area, stood a lone shack Indian takeaway.
‘Worn’t that last Ripper murder round here?’
‘Poppet, the area is crawling with the filth,’ said Gina. ‘If I had my way, I’d castrate the bugger. Cut his balls off. Very slowly. With a very blunt razor.’
She swore and pressed the wires again, making ’em fizzle. Suddenly the door opened, swinging outwards.
‘Heard you the fuckin’ first time,’ said a man’s voice, his Manchester accent ironing every word flat. We followed him up a cold, unlit stairwell. He wore a leather jacket wi’ t’ words ‘Hell and Back’ studded onto it. His hair wor long and greasy and wi’ greying strands, reminding me of an unwashed collie.
We passed by a room of shoe lasts. A cascading heap of wooden clogs heaped against t’ wall like the piles of suitcases and glasses I’d seen on
World at War
docs. We climbed another floor, on past the frosted yellow panes of some disused offices, ’til we came out onto a large factory floor. The far end wor lit by a naked bulb hanging from a ceiling hook and a fire that raged in an immense fireplace.
‘Welcome to Paradise, poppet.’
‘Brill place!’
Our footsteps echoed across t’ concrete floor.
‘Used to be a shoe factory,’ said the Hell’s Angel, ‘but, hey, nothing lasts … Geddit … Shoes? … Lasts?’
‘We’re all tired of that old joke, Victor,’ Gina snapped. She unhooked Jeremy from his lead and he monkey-hopped over to t’ fire. The flames wor fierce on his face, giving him edges and hollows.
‘This is ace,’ I said. ‘Must cost a bit to rent.’
‘Rent!?’ squealed Gina. ‘Rent? Hah! No, my little capitalist poppet, we squat it. You know – occupy … liberate?’
I bit my lip, feeling friggin’ gormless.
‘We call this place Hotel California,’ said Victor.
‘No we don’t!’ Gina flashed. ‘Well, you do, but no one else does. Cali-fucking-fornia! Fuck Hotel fuckin’ California! And fuck The Eagles! Hippy has-beens! Fuckin’ Yanks!’
‘I like ’em,’ muttered Victor smally.
Jeremy sprawled himsen across an old armchair and opened a can of Red Stripe, tossing the ring-pull into t’ fire, then passed the can to me. I took a sup and then handed it back. I sat on t’ floor wi’ my back against t’ same armchair. Gina sat cross-legged opposite me.
‘So,’ said Jeremy, sounding both menacing and superior, ‘where wor you heading, hmm? Or rather, where had you been?’
‘Nowhere much. I wor in t’ Fenton earlier on.’
‘The Fenton? Hear that Gina, wonder boy here wor in the Fenton.’
‘The Fenton, poppet?’
‘On Woodhouse Lane. That bleedin’ leftie-student-commie pub – you know the one.’
‘Oh,
that
one. Maybe we should pay it a visit.’
Victor, who had vanished into t’ inky vastness, returned carrying a bikkie tin. Mooching along behind him wor three other Paradise inmates: two long-haired men and a mousy little woman. They had, I saw as they neared, the dead-eyed look of junkies.
The men slumped onto an old leather sofa and the woman sprawled before t’ fire on a dirty sheepskin rug. She wor humming to hersen and fiddling wi’ an unlit roll-up. I grimaced and one of t’ men, one wi’ mutton-chops, nodded at me warily. We sat around like circus performers waiting backstage, supping beer and passing a spliff.
Then mutton-chops man opened the tin and took out a syringe. He signalled to t’other one beside him to roll up his shirt sleeve. He held the syringe at eye level and tapped it. I pretended not to be watching, like it all wor summat and nowt. I’d seen my share of discarded syringes on t’ pop round, in t’ tower-block stairwells and walkways and what have you. I’d idled in t’ doorways of stinking flats wi’ t’ thin curtains drawn against t’ daylight, wi’ broken toys or shite-filled nappies strewn over t’ bare floors; the gaunt faces and yellowed eyes pleading wi’ me for a week’s credit on their pop. But I’d never seen no one inject before.
The man wi’ t’ rolled-up sleeve pumped his fist a few times to raise up a vein, and t’ other one kneaded his skin, searching for an entry point. As the needle slid in the man’s eyelids shuttered over and he sank back into t’ sofa wi’ a soft sigh.
Mutton-chops man then eyeballed me levelly and said in a hoarse whisper, ‘Does this disgust you?’
‘Should it?’
The man cocked his head, his hair hanging in front of his eyes. Jeremy wor drumming his fingers on my shoulders to some song playing in his head.
The man held up the syringe.
‘Wanna?’
Jeremy’s drumming fingers lost their rhythm for a moment. A smile flickered across t’ man’s lips.
I hesitated, as if mulling it over. Never ever accept or reject an offer out of hand, Mitch had a habit of saying. I glanced over at his mate, who wor out of it. He wor t’ lucky one. My head wor swimming wi’ Jim, the Chinese-dressing-gown man, Dora, wire-haired Jake and even t’ angry car driver – all wor gathered in a huddle in my head and whispering like I wor t’ butt of their private joke. I tried to blot them out by focusing on t’ syringe. The needle glinted in t’ firelight. The room had gone very quiet.
‘Not just now. Ta.’
I tried to sound light, like refusing another drink or summat. The man’s face darkened over. He spat on t’ floor. Jeremy’s fingers lifted from my shoulders. Making a snip-snip motion in t’ air he said, ‘Well, are we or aren’t we?’
‘Oh, yes!’ Gina squealed, jumping to her feet. ‘We must!’
Mutton-chops junkie sniggered, got up and sloped off. T’other bloke wor still out of it, and the woman had fallen asleep on t’ rug wi’ a lit ciggie between her fingers. Jeremy vanished into t’ shadows and returned carrying a kitchen chair.
‘Well then. Let’s be having you, wonder boy. Take off your shirt.’
I peeled my T-shirt over my head. He placed the chair directly beneath t’ hanging lightbulb, facing away from t’ fire and toward t’ pitch dark. The chill brought me out in goosebumps and made my nipples stand up. The junkie woman woke up and relit her roll-up and offered it to Gina, who waved her away.
‘Not now, Julia.’
Jeremy fetched his clippers and then a bowl of warm water and a small, dirty towel.
‘Sit!’ he ordered.
I sat. The bowl of tepid water wor placed on another chair right in front of me.
‘Bend forward!’
Jeremy shampooed my scalp, dried it vigorously wi’ t’ manky hand towel, then started applying the black dye. It ran in ticklish rivulets down my neck and leached into t’ metal bowl at my feet. It had a raw, caustic smell. Without waiting for t’ dye to set, and wi’ one hand clamped on t’ back of my neck, Jeremy began to snip. Clumps of hair fell into my lap, into t’ bowl and around my feet. I steered my mind away from thinking about what wor being done to me and, sugared a little by desire, fantasised mesen as a criminal having my hair shorn.
Jeremy paced about me, slurping from his can of Red Stripe and snipping. Gina just gleamed at me.
‘Relax, will you,’ Jeremy snapped. ‘I’m not going to cut your head off.’
I dropped my shoulders and stared straight ahead. Jeremy thumped me in t’ lower back.
‘I said relax. Not slump!’
I stared straight ahead, focusing on a far point of t’ room. Beyond t’ harsh ring of t’ naked bulb above me, lying on a mattress that I could now make out by t’ far wall, wor someone else. I couldn’t tell if they wor kipping or lying awake. I took it to be another junkie.
‘Who’s that?’ I whispered to Gina.
‘Just Tad, poppet, sleeping off a helluva hangover. HEY, PRICK-FACE, WAKE UP!’
The shape moved, shuffling and stretching, hacking and gobbing onto t’ floor. Then it rose up, a shadow rising up the wall wi’ it.
The shape stepped out of t’ gloom. He wor naked. I glimpsed the dance of his cock as he pulled on some bleached-out drainpipes that lay on t’ floor. The man said, ‘I need a fuckin’ piss.’ He stumbled drowsily toward a door.
‘So how many people live here?’
‘Depends, poppet, depends. People come, people go.’
Jeremy wor slow in his labours. Eventually I wor allowed to view mesen in a large shard of mirror. It wor me, and not me. My hair wor jet-black, teased up and stiffened like oil-soaked beach grasses. My lugs wor visible, and the nape of my neck felt cold and exposed. Gina and Jeremy looked on while I stared at mesen in dumb amazement.
‘Oh, fuck!’
Tad came back from pissing and stood before me, his arms folded across his chest, grinning wolfishly. He had a tattoo of an iron cross above his right nipple and a Union Jack tattoo on his upper right arm.
‘Should have shorn him, Jez.’
‘He doesn’t want to be a skinhead, stupid,’ Gina said, stroking my inner thigh. Her smile wor almost feline. ‘Anyway, poppet, you’re ours now!’
I awoke on a thin mattress in a room wi’ a single, grilled window. The hair dye had left stains on t’ pillow. My mouth tasted like a rat had died in it. Tad wor kipping on another mattress by t’ wall opposite, curled up in t’ foetal position, his backbone ridged up like a wolf’s. T’others wor in other rooms.
I lay still while my eyes grew used to t’ gloom, then got up and padded about. I peered out through t’ window at the rose dawn sky. Tad rolled over, pushing his blanket aside in his sleep. I knelt down, drinking him in. As well as the tattoos I’d clocked earlier, he had a Yorkshire rose on his other arm and a serpent snaking toward his groin. A thin line of sandy hair ran up to his navel. He had an appendix scar and a faint birthmark on his lower abdomen.
I lifted the blanket back over him. He grunted, rolled over and buried his face in t’ pillow. I dressed mesen in t’ cold, greying light and made my way down t’ stairs.
In t’ kitchen on t’ floor below I came across Julia, the junkie woman, asleep in an armchair, her head lolling forward and her hair covering her face. No sign of t’other junkies. I shuftied about for summat to eat, my insides gurgling like one of Dr Jekyll’s potions. The breadbin wor empty. On t’ kitchen stove stood a saucepan of cold stew. I spooned up a mouthful. A smear of cold grease coated my tongue.