The Guv'nor (3 page)

As we got nearer, we could see these great stone archways over the entrance, and I said to Tony, ‘Cor, this looks just like a place where they bury kings and queens.' Once we got through the gates we followed the paths which wound through trees, just like being in the woods. We ran up and down reading the names on black marble headstones, carved angels and gold-leafed crosses. No luck. Then Tony said, ‘Ask the old bloke in the shed – he'll know where your dad is.'

It took this bloke about 20 minutes to sort through some old books, then without even looking up, he said, ‘Oh, yeah, follow the path straight up, then turn right,' adding, ‘it's number four.' That didn't mean anything to us so off we went. Finding nothing with McLean on it, we went back to the shed. ‘Ere, mister,' I said,
‘somebody nicked me dad's headstone.' You know what, that bastard laughed.

‘Look, son,' he said, ‘I told you it was number four. It's a pauper's grave, they don't have headstones. Anyway, there's probably 20 people down there keeping him company.'

Heartless git. I felt my eyes filling up, I was only 12 but I knew what pauper meant. I was gutted. I know money was tight in those days, but Dad had come from a big, loving family. Surely they could have all put a few quid in for a proper grave?

Thirty-two years later I went back to Albany Park Cemetery, this time with Peter, my co-writer. The church where we had Dad's funeral is derelict now and seems to have shrunk a lot from what I remember when I was five. Anyway, Pete and me searched for hours, up and down, this way, that way, then we found the little cross that marked my dad's grave. It was half buried in brambles, nettles and broken bits of stone. It was a pathetic reminder of the man who's a great part of me. I promised then that I would see a decent headstone erected for that lovely man and it'll be done. When Lenny makes a promise you can depend on it.

Dad's death obviously had a great effect on all of us, but being young kids we soon got on with our lives. Mum seemed to get older and didn't seem to want to do anything any more, but gradually she must have come to terms with it because she started to dress nicely and put make-up on, so after a year or so she was our beautiful mum again.

What we didn't realise was that she had a reason to look nice – she'd met another bloke. One day I was sitting in the front room when Mum came in with this great big man, taller and wider than my dad had been. When she went to make a cup of tea, I followed her into the kitchen and asked who the geezer was. She said, ‘He's your Uncle Jim and he's going to look after us.'

Suddenly, I got this horrible feeling. ‘But, Mum, we've already got a nice Uncle Fred,' I said, a bit put out.

‘I know, luv, but Uncle Fred has got to look after your Nan, and anyway Jim is going to love us all just like your dad used to.'

So that was that.

For a few weeks, this bloke was a regular visitor. He'd bring little toys for us and his pockets would be stuffed with sweets. He'd bounce Raymond on his knee, cuddle the others, and ruffle my hair – any old bollocks to worm his way in. The next minute he'd parked himself in full time and our lives were never the same again.

Up until he married our mum, Jim Irwin wasn't too bad. I reckon he was playing it softly softly. But as soon as the knot was tied I suppose he thought he could drop the pretence of loving us kids. Looking back from an adult point of view, I was probably a pain in the arse. Moody, resentful and definitely jealous of him taking over my dad's place so soon. But if he'd been any sort of man at all he would have understood and not treated a defenceless kid the way he did.

The first time I came up against him was when he told me to pass him a cup of tea from the table. I slopped most of it in the saucer and some down the chair. He let me put the cup down then, without a word, he slapped me in the face. The pain and shock was so great that for a moment I couldn't breathe. Then, when I could draw breath, I couldn't stop shaking, but I didn't cry. I was six years old and I just looked at him until he looked away, saying to me, ‘Get that look off your face – you asked for it.' That was the first time in my life I'd been hit with such violence. I'd had the occasional clip on the arse from Mum, that's something a kid expects, it shows she loves you or something, but Dad had never laid a hand on us. Now this. He was a crafty bastard. And Mum never seemed to be around when he hit us – not at first, anyway.

When Mum came in she must have noticed my swollen face but she didn't say anything. Nor did I – it's like you feel guilty in some way, so ignore it and then it never happened.

If I thought that was a one off I was to get a rude awakening. The word ‘Guv'nor' has always meant the top person. Every village or manor had its Guv'nor, the toughest person, the boss, and over the years I earned that title of respect myself. But when you're a little kid there is only one Guv'nor and that's where me and Jim Irwin disagreed.

Mum had taken the others out shopping or visiting somebody, and I was indoors with my stepfather. I was running some little cars up and down the breadboard pretending it was a hill when he must have told me to keep quiet. Knowing how I resented him, I probably mumbled something under my breath, though probably not quite under enough. He flew at me, grabbed me by the collar of my jersey and the seat of my trousers, and swung me right above his head. He shook the bollocks out of me and shouted, ‘Who's the Guv'nor? Who's the fucking Guv'nor?' I was so scared I couldn't open my mouth. ‘Answer me, you little bastard.'

‘It's me mum,' I muttered. The next thing I know, I'm flying through the air. I hit the table and a chair on the way down and
ended up against the wall. Then he towered over me, shouting, ‘Wrong, you little shit.
I'm
the Guv'nor now and don't forget it.' Forget it? – I wasn't likely to. That animal had broken my leg and my kneecap.

It's no good you reading this and thinking something like that couldn't happen, because it did all the time. You've got to understand this was the early Fifties, not the Nineties. Today, if your kid falls over, the social workers or the law come running, but back then there was no such thing as child abuse. We all know there was, but nobody saw it, nobody heard it and nobody spoke about it, so it couldn't be happening, could it? In those days, neither the hospital nor the law could give a toss about some scruffy little East End kid with a few bruises or fractures. Patch him up and send him back quick to the slums where he belongs and make room for clean, decent kids.

So where was our mum? I'll tell you – stuck right in the middle of a situation she couldn't and didn't know how to change. It goes without saying that she knew what a terrible mistake she'd made bringing that pig into our home. But batter us or not, he was paying the rent and putting bread on the table. She might have been blonde and beautiful, but women with five kids don't stand much chance of getting a man to look after them. So what did she do? She blanked out what he was doing to us all.

Was he an actor or what? I couldn't believe the rubbish he was telling everybody, and that included Mum.

‘I feel terrible … wicked thing to happen … but it's that temper of his that done it … threw himself right out of my arms when I'm giving him a little telling off,' he said, lying his way out of it. And while he was spouting on, with tears in his eyes, he shot me looks that said, ‘Get out of that, you little shit, and keep it shut.'

And me? I must have been mad, because I didn't contradict him. See what I mean about being made to feel guilty? I think Mum knew the truth, though. When I was in hospital, she'd sit by my bed with her eyes full of tears, saying, ‘I'm sorry, son. I'm sorry.' She never actually came out with what she was sorry about, but we both knew.

Once I got back home, Jim Irwin carried on where he'd left off as though nothing had happened. Whenever he thought we were due for another belting, he'd come out with ‘spare the rod, spoil the child', like it was a good excuse for giving us a good seeing to. I used to dread hearing that old chestnut, because it always meant one or all of us was in serious trouble.

His sick mind dreamt up a points system for punishment. He'd give us a point for being too noisy, another one for wetting the bed, perhaps two for breaking something. Then at the end of the day, we'd all have to stand in line and get a belt for every point. Even then the bastard would pull a fast one. If you were due four belts, you'd get five or six– he just had to get the extras in. When I say ‘belt' I don't mean a whack with a belt-strap across the arse. He gave us the business. Punches in the face, in the stomach, and if you scrunched up to protect yourself you'd get his shoe in your ribs. We used to go to school black and blue. The teachers would say, ‘Been fighting again, McLean?' Yeah, I had; bit one-sided, though.

If he was at home, we'd be in bed by half-past five. Imagine, we're all laying in bed, the sun's still shining outside, and we couldn't talk. We had to lie there listening to the distant voices of happy kids playing football or riding their bikes up and down. We'd be hungry as well. He might have been the breadwinner, but it was mostly for his own greedy self. No wonder he was a big fat bastard. He called it ‘his food'.

I remember one night we'd been sent to bed with no tea. We heard him go out, then about ten minutes later Mum came in with a plate of bread and jam. ‘Ooh, thanks, Mum, smashing.' Then we're just going to tuck in when the door burst open. He's come back, hasn't he? He went crazy, punching our mum on to the bed, grabbing the plate and flinging it straight through the window. There was glass everywhere.

We all yelled with fright and he shouted, ‘I don't work my bollocks off for you lot to thieve my grub.' Then he made a dive for us. Mum threw herself right across all of us and took every punch he threw in the back. Lying underneath her we could feel every blow. He was like a wild man – face red, spit dribbling down his chin. Then he was gone, leaving us all screaming and crying.

Mrs Hayes from upstairs came down, she'd heard the set-to and she wanted to call the law, but Mum wouldn't have it. She just slumped in the chair coughing. Every now and then, she'd wipe blood away from her mouth. It turned out that bastard – and I want to kill him stone dead right now just thinking about it – that beast had broken five of her ribs.

That night we all slept upstairs with the Hayes, and I remember one of their boys, my mate Alfie, saying, ‘Why don't you kill him, Lenny?' That must have planted a seed in my nut because from then on I used to plan how I'd do it. I think my favourite was to stab him
with a knife when he was asleep. It never happened, but the thought gave me strength.

There was a time, though, when he came very close to getting it, and it wasn't from a little kid either. I came home from school one day. It must have been winter because it was dark and freezing cold. As I came up the last flight of stairs my little brother Kruger was huddled on the floor by the door. This was Raymond, but we all called him Kruger because when he was a baby he looked just like an old German man who lived downstairs. Anyway, he's crying, his nose is running, and he's wet himself. I put my arm round him and I asked, ‘What's up, mate, did you think we'd all left you?' He sort of nodded and said, ‘There's no one in.' I knew that or he wouldn't have been sitting there. Then we both jumped as the lift door opened right beside us and there was Jim Irwin, appearing like a fucking genie from a lamp.

‘What's up with you, cry-baby?' he said to Kruger.

‘I think I've wet meself,' he said and I felt my stomach turn over. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.

Irwin flung the door open, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him inside the flat. He stripped him naked and started slapping his bare backside with his open hand. That wasn't enough, so he took his belt off and used that. I could see the buckle cutting into Kruger's skinny little body so I tried to grab the belt. It earned me such a punch in the head I went cross-eyed for a minute. But I had another go and Jim kicked me twice without releasing his hold on my brother. I wasn't counting but he must have hit him about 30 times, and then he threw him on to the bed.

While he was being beaten Kruger was screaming, but now he was all scrunched up on the bed, lying so quiet I thought he must be dead. When Mum came in, Irwin told her not to go near him. ‘Rose, luv, I've had to give him a bit of a smack for wetting himself, so leave him to think about it in bed until the morning.'

When we all went to bed at about six, I looked under the covers and his body and bottom were all covered in bloody welts. He just lay there, white faced and shivering. Four years old and beaten worse than a dog. I got into bed and cuddled him, and do you know what that brave little fucker said?

‘I'm sorry I wet meself, Lenny.' He was sorry – he was smashed to bits and was sorry for causing trouble.

I could hear that bastard laughing in the other room, and I thought, ‘I'm going to get you hurt for what you've done.' As young
as I was, I could take whatever he could dish out, but I couldn't bear to see any of the others get it.

I lay there for hours still holding little Kruger. I heard the telly shut down. We had one by then, and I think it used to go off at about eleven in those days. Still, I lay there until I was sure everybody was asleep. Then I woke up my brother, told the others to keep quiet, dressed us both and sneaked out of the flat. My mate Alfie had a
go-kart
made from an old pram, and he used to keep it tucked behind the rubbish bin on the ground floor. I got that out real quiet, laid Kruger on it and, pulling him along with a bit of string, set off to take him to my mum's mum, Nan Campion.

It wasn't that far, but it seemed like miles. It started to snow and it was pitch dark. About halfway there I saw a copper but I pulled the cart up an alley and hid until he'd gone by. Don't ask me why – it was just instinct, just something you always did. Eventually, we got there and the house was all dark but I banged on the door until I got Nan out of bed.