Ecstasy (12 page)

– ’Salroight Mr T., I’m just getting them in, ain’t I, Bal says and hits the bar. He comes back with a pint and a large Scotch for the old cunt.

– That’s a man, he points at Bal. – Young Barry thair … Barry Leitch … that’s a
real
fuckin man! he smiles, raising his glass to Bal, who does the same back. Then he clocks me staring at him. – Hi, whit’s wrang wi your face!

I’m fucking well seething at the old cunt.

– Whit’s wraaaannng …

That fucking ugly beery Scotch face, that stupid, breathless Jock voice; it never stops, not for one bleedin minute. I really want to shut that stupid voice up.

– Nuffink! I snap. Then the old cunt’s got an arm around me and he’s turned to Bal n Riggsie. I’m going to swing for the old cunt, fucking sure as Christ …

– This is ma boey here. And he’s a fuckin arsehole! A FUCKIN EEEEERRRRRSSSSE! Bit he’s still ma boey, he says. Then: – Hi son, gaunny sub us but? Ah’m expectin a big insurance cheque, son. They telt us it wid’ve been here by now, so thair wis me up the dug track last night, thinkin ah’d be flush n ah wid be sorted oot this mornin … ye know what ah mean, David … eh, son?

I pulled out a couple of tenners. Anything, anything to get rid of the fucking old ponce.

– Yir a good boey, son. A good PRAWSTINT boey!

He looked around, then rolled up his sleeve. – Ma blood, he said to Riggsie, – Prawstint blood.

– I’m sure it’s one hundred per cent proof, Mr T., Riggsie says, n Bal n Shorthand n Roj n Johnny n that, they all have a bleedin laugh n I do n all, but I don’t like Riggsie’s mouth. Cunt or no cunt, this is still my old man we’re talking about here. A bit of fucking respect is called for.

– That’s it, son. One hunner per cent prawstint! The old clown
says
. Then thankfully he looks around and sees another old pisshead staggering into the bar. – Ah’m gaunny huv tae love yis and leave yis, boys. Ower thair at the bar, a very good friend of mine’s ah’ll have ye know … well, take care ma boeys. Nae fitba bother! Ah’m relyin oan youse boys tae screw the nut. Yis huv goat tae huv the big match temperament … interfuckincityfirm … shite! The Billy Boeys … we could’ve showed youse a thing or two … that wis
real
hard men … the Bricktin Billy Boeys, the original Bricktin Billy Boeys ah’m talkin aboot here! Remember, boeys, yuv goat tae git in first n take nae prisoners. Yuv goat tae huv the big match temperament!

– That’s the game, Mr T., Bal says.

The old cunt stands up and lurches over to this other sad old fucker at the bar.

– BIG MATCH TEMPERAMENT! he turns back and shouts over.

I’m fucking well wound up. There’s only one place to go when you’re feeling like this. I turn to Bal. – I fancy a little walk over the river. A bus to London Bridge and a pleasant stroll down Tooley Street, along Jamaica Road and back home by Tube from Rotherhithe. Just the six of us.

Bal smiled, – I’m up for that. Let’s piss all over the bastards.

Riggsie shrugs, so does Shorthand and the rest. They’ll come along, but their bottle ain’t really up for it.

Mine is. I down the pint, relaxing my gullet and taking it in one swallow and feeling that gassy burp as it fills my gut. It’s time to move.

Toronto, 1967

Bob looked at the youngster in his wife’s arms. For a second he thought about another country, another wife and another child … no. He stopped himself as he stroked the baby’s warm red cheek. That was another time, another place. That was Wolverhampton Bob Worthington. This Bob Worthington had made a new life for himself in Toronto.

He stayed at the hospital for a few hours, then, exhausted but elated after sitting up all night, took the long drive home out to the suburbs. All the houses were different in his street, not like the mass-built redbrick slums he’d come from, yet a strange air of uniformity still pervaded his district. He parked the car in the narrow driveway outside the garage.

Bob looked at the basketball hoop which was suspended the regular ten feet above the garage door, and imagined his son growing – even saw him as a young man, leaping up like a salmon to send the ball home. This child would have the opportunities which circumstance had denied him. He would make sure of that. Tomorrow he had to go back to work; that was what you had to do when you worked for yourself. Just now he was shattered. As he went to bed, Bob prayed for a deep sleep with his dreams defined by the marvellous events of the day. He hoped the demons wouldn’t come.

That was what he hoped more than anything.

Decent Skirt

There's us fucking sitting out in the car-park, in the back of the van. No cunt wants our fucking gear; it’s all been a waste of bleeding time. Well, I’m thinking that if things don’t liven up around here soon, I’m gonna take a good E and just get right into the flaming action. Bal’s with some geezers in the other motor, he ain’t up for going in. Well, he can do as he pleases, I ain’t hanging about, am I; flaming skirt galore in there.

– That was a great fucking ruck the other week, in that pub like, Shorthand says.

– Yeah, after I pulled them geezers off you, I told him. If I hadn’t the slag would have been finished. – Final fucking chapter, weren’t it.

– Yeah, I thought that I was well fucked there for a bit. See once I got hold of them glasses though, phoarr … I was taking all them cunts out: left, right and bleeding centre.

– That fat bastard behind the bar, Johnny says, – he was pretty fucking tasty.

– Yeah, I goes, – he was until I copped him with that metal barstool. That was fucking ace. I remember that all right: fucking brilliant the way the cunt’s eyebrow just split right open.

I clock Shorthand ferreting in the plastic bag for beer. – Oi, Shorthand! Give us a fucking can, you cunt, I shout over at him. He passes a lager. McEwan’s.

– Fucking Jock piss, he says, then: – Sorry, mate, I forgot.

– Don’t worry about it.

– I mean, it ain’t as if you’re really flaming Scotch n all. It’s like my old man, he’s a Mick, and my old gel, she’s Polish, innit. Don’t make me a flamin Pole now, does it?

I just fucking shrug, – We’re all sodding mongrels, mate.

– Yeah, Shorthand goes, – but we’re all white men though, innit. Purity of race n all of that.

– Yeah, I suppose you got a point there, mate, I say.

– I mean, I ain’t saying that Hitler neccessarily had it right, mind you. It ain’t his fault he wasn’t an Englishman.

– Yeah, Hitler was a fucking wanker, I tell him, – Two World Wars and one World Cup, mate. All won by the claret n blue.

Shorthand starts singing. Ain’t no holding him when he gets started on some of the old West Ham classics. – No re-li-ga-shin for the claret n blue, just ju-bi-la-shin, for the claret n blue …

Riggsie climbs into the van. Bal’s behind him with that cunt Rodger. – Come inside, you cunts! Riggsie says, – It’s fucking kicking in there! The sounds, I’m tellin ya, make the hairs stand up on the back of your bleedin neck!

– Tell ya wot makes the fucking hairs stand up on the back of my neck, I say.

– The bagpipes, Shorthand goes.

– Nah. There’s cunt’s dealin in there, and they ain’t bleedin Firm, I tell Riggsie.

Bal says, – Yeah, that’s fucking well right, Thorny. Some fucker’s on a broken face in there.

That shuts Riggsie up good n proper. He’s a fucking soft touch, the stupid cunt. Them smarmy gits, the skinny fuckers with the big bags full of pills, they just crawl up his arse. It’s no bleedin wonder we can’t shift our Paracetamols and bicarbs.

– Nah, it ain’t that, Riggsie’s going, – What’s happened is that every fucker seems to have got sorted out before they came along tonight. He hands Bal a pill, – Here, take one of them.

– Fuck off, Bal snorts. He still ain’t up for it. Fuck it, I swallow an E and head indoors with Riggsie. Shorthand’s necked one n all and he’s right behind us.

Inside I’m checking out this group of skirt standing by the wall. One of them I can’t stop looking at. I’m feeling a bit ropey, like I need to do a big fucking shit and then I realise that it’s because I’m
coming
right up off my fucking threepenny bits on this fucking gear and them bleedin sounds.

– Wot you fucking well staring at? She just came over and said it right out to me. I don’t really stare at skirt as such. I mean, as far as I see things it’s down to manners. Shorthand, well, he just intimidates a Doris. Stares straight at them; they probably think that they’re gonna get fucking raped or something. I’ve pulled him up about it. Don’t you fucking well stare down skirt, I tell him. You wanna stare some cunt down, you go down the Old Kent Road and try it with some Millwall geezers. You gotta treat birds with respect, I said to him. How’d you like some Bushwacker or Headhunter starin at your sis like that?

But here I am, staring at this gel. And it ain’t just cause she’s so pretty, cause she is, she’s fucking beautiful. It’s just that I’ve had this ecstasy and I’m staring at this gel who ain’t got any arms.

– Wasn’t you on the telly? It’s all I can think to say.

– Nah, I wasn’t on no telly and I wasn’t in no bleedin freak show either.

– I never …

– Well, just piss off, she snaps at me, turning away. Her mate puts an arm around her neck. I just stands there like a right bleedin turnip. I mean, nobody likes a slag with a mouth; let’s just take that one as given, but what can you say to a gel who ain’t got no bleedin arms?

– Oi, Dave, you ain’t gonna let some freaky skirt talk to ya like that, are ya? Shorthand smiles at me with his rotten teeth exposed.

Teeth which could so easily be smashed.

– You shut your bleedin mouth, you wanker, or I’ll shut it for ya. No doubt about it, I am well pissed off with that cunt; pretty gel who ain’t got no bleedin arms, a crying shame in anybody’s book, that’s what that is. Her mate comes across to me, another looker, all pupils, E’d out of her nut.

– Sorry about her. Bad acid like.

– What about her arms then, eh? I shouldn’t really have said that, but sometimes things just sort of slip out. Best to say what’s on your mind though, I suppose.

– Tenazadrine, innit.

Shorthand has to stick his bleedin oar in at that. – That’s the smallest boozer in the world, innit: The Tenazadrine Arms.

– Shut it, you mouthy slag! I snap at the wanker and he knows what the stare I’m giving him means and he’s pissing off. Mate or no mate, that slag’s on a collision course with a good slapping. I turns to the Doris. – Tell your mate I didn’t mean to upset her none.

She smiles at me, – Come over and tell her yourself.

That sort of floors me, cause I get all sort of shy in front of a gel I really like. We’re not talking slags here, cause they’re ten a penny, but with a gel I like it’s really sort of all different. The Ecstasy helps though. I go across.

– Oi, eh sorry about starin at you n all, like.

– I’m used to it, she says.

– I don’t usually stare at people …

– Only ones without arms.

– It ain’t cause of the arms … it’s because I was getting a great rush off the E and I felt so good … and you … you just look so fucking beautiful, I just let it all come out, – I’m Dave, by the way.

– Samantha. Don’t ever call me Sam. Never. My name’s Samantha, she says, almost smiling.

Almost is more than enough for me. – Samantha, I repeat, – well, don’t you ever call me David. It’s Dave.

Then she smiles at that and something happens to me inside. This Doris is like a fucking white dove crammed full of more MDMA than I’ve ever had in my fucking life.

London, 1979

She sat in the Oxford Street branch of the fast-food chain with her chocolate milkshake, sucking the sugary liquid through the straw. She had elected to take the Tube into town after signing on down in Hammersmith. She couldn’t face being in the flat she was squatting in; a group of young Scots guys had recently moved in and spent most of the day sitting around drinking bottles of cider and arguing with pointless dogmatism about the bands they were into. The West End had seemed a better bet on this hot day, but her head was a soupy void, an opium party into which the odd unwelcome thought occasionally gatecrashed. She thought of another gig, another band, another face, another fuck; another mechanical, loveless fuck. She tightened the muscles of her vagina and let a shiver convulse her body. Feeling the onset of self-loathing, she forced herself to subvert this bad line of thought by contemplating the mundane scene of shoppers bustling into the ridiculously crowded eating-house.

It was at this point that she felt his eyes on her.

She didn’t know how long he had been staring at her. It was the smile she noticed first, but she was determined not to acknowledge it. Another fucking creep. The ones that wanted to talk about her disability, they were always the worst. There was the old fucker who told her he was a Church of England minister. She didn’t want any more of that shit just at the moment.

When he came over and sat down beside her, she felt a familiar shock of recognition. He was another punk. His hair was pink, and he wore a leather jacket, unimaginatively held together with safety pins. There was something sterile about his look: too pristine, too contrived. A total plastic. – Mind if I join you? he asked. His accent was foreign, possibly German. She noticed this, noticed the dress.
With
his jacket draped across his shoulders it took a little longer before it dawned on her that he was more like her than she had at first perceived.

– I’m Andreas. I would shake hands, he laughed, but somehow I don’t think that is appropriate. He shook off the jacket to expose flippers which, like her own, grew out of his shoulders. – Perhaps, he smiled, – we will kiss instead?

Samantha felt her jaw tighten aggressively, but she realised that this response had to compete with another; a nauseous, nervy, queasy rush of embarrassed attraction. – I don’t wanna fucking kiss you, she snapped, in a clichéd punk mode. It sounded as fake as Andreas’s gear looked.

– That makes me sad, Andreas said, and he did look sad. – I sense that you are a very angry person, yes?

– You what? she said, genuinely upset, yet intrigued, at this continuing intrusion.