Playfair

by Jamie Tuck

  ~

  ‘First you smash some fucker’s boat, now y’nickin their DRUGS?’ Smithy says. ‘Are you two for fuckin real or what? This has got fuck all to do wi me.’

  Wedge clutches the red bag to his chest as they reach the top of the steps.

  ‘Stop bein gay man,’ he mutters.

  Smithy stops and spins.

  ‘Fuck you!’ he jabs his finger. ‘Y’coulda fuckin killed me.’

  ‘Me?’ Wedge says. ‘What the fuck did I do? You went back for y’fuckin handbag.’

  ‘That fuckin boat MUST belong to someone.’

  They walk on up the steps.

  In silence.

  They get to the top.

  ‘We’ll just . .’

  They face the main gate to the outside world, the official entrance to the drydocks and . . .

  ‘Hey!’

  Everything stops.

  There’s someone there.

  And he’s seen them.

  ‘Hey!’ the man says. ‘What the fuck . . . ?’

  A sunburnt old man, standing there like a Roman gaoler in a white string vest, a hoop of ancient keys in his hands. Probably a hammer and fat nails in his back pocket, just in case a quick crucifixion needs sorting.

  ‘Uh?’ Berry says.

  ‘What the fuck y’doin?’ the man shouts.

  He starts pacing towards them, too fast for such an old bastard.

  Nothing else moves for a full quarter second.

  ‘Shit-the-fuckin-bed!’ Berry says.

  A sweet adrenaline injection hits his bloodstream.

  ‘Leg it!’

  They head for the hills.

  Smithy first.

  Then Berry.

  Wedge is somewhere close behind, over his shoulder.

  ‘Ha ha ha. Wanker!’

  Yep, that’s him.

  Fear rips around Berry’s system like a fucked missile.

  The man shouts.

  ‘Y’fuckin little bastards!’

  He’s closer than he should be, he’s taken a shortcut behind an old security hut at the bottom of the hill they’d scuffed down to get here from the Roman fort.

  ‘Fuckinhell, fuckinhell, fuckinhell!’

  Berry tears up the dusty bank that heads up to the archaelogical dig. Smithy is already through the hole in the fence in front of him.

  And away.

  Berry hits it.

  The sharp edges scratch at his burns.

  Wedge is still at the bottom of the hill.

  ‘Get off! Ow y’cunt! Ow! Pack it in man!’

  Berry takes off through the earth scratched up by the bearded moles. He follows Smithy’s tracks out through the site of the Roman fort and onto the road.

  Smithy’s up ahead. Arms pumping. Running like Carl Lewis.

  ‘Smi, Smi, Smithy,’ Berry heaves. ‘Slow the fuck . . slow the fuck fuckin down man. For fuck’s sakes!’

  Smithy stops under an old lamp, just as its light sensor says it’s dark – it clicks into life.

  Berry reaches him.

  Smithy’s chest is heaving like a crazed bellows.

  ‘Whe, where?’ he pants. ‘Where’s Wedge?

  Berry stares back through the tents and the gravel. Gulping air into his chest to feed his busy heart. He points, then puts his hands on his knees and leans forward – to pull air into his lungs.

  ‘Man, I think. I think he got caught.’

  ‘What? He’s got me bag.’

  ‘The bag, and the . . .’

  Real fear hits them now.

  ‘Ah man,’ Smithy almost weeps. ‘He’s fuckin dead!’

  Berry turns and heads back to the dust track that leads through Segedenum to where it drops down the bank to the shipyard - it twists away like a dried stream.

  Silent.

  Empty.

  Two hundred yards down the road, and Billy ‘Hash’ Brown’s fingers cramp like talons around the steering wheel. He hunches forward, his forehead a suffering soup of sweat and blisters.

  They drive along the road that winds alongside the fat river, her banks flooded with heavy industry. Tangled metal scratches at a bleeding sky, all that remains of a long day

  ‘Man you do fuckin stink,’ Foggy says. ‘When was the last time you had a bath?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Y’haven’t changed them clothes for days, have ya? Scruffy cunt.’

  The steel divisions in the sky tick by and the lamp posts shwoosh woosh into the car’s open windows.

  Foggy flicks his fag stub out his side.

  ‘Where the fuck we goin anyway?’

  ‘We’re nearly there, round this bend. Better wait til it gets a bit darker tho.’

  ‘Man, we’re not goin robbin are we?’

  ‘Nah. Not really.’

  Foggy turns back to the open window.

  ‘‘Not really?’ Pinchin’s too much like hard work.’

  ‘Nice big spliff, man,’ Hash thinks to himself. ‘Might even shut this prick up,’

  ‘What?’ Foggy says.

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Eh? Y’brain’s fucked up since y’got y’tan, y ‘fuckin weirdo. Talkin to y’self and that. All the fuckin time.’

  ‘Fat spliff, big fat spliff.’

  Hash’s grip on the wheel eases a fraction.

  ‘Hey?’ Foggy says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is that the little gobshite who lives next door to Talbot?’

  ‘What?’

  Hash focuses.

  A teenage boy is running solo towards them, red faced and frantic on the other side of the road, carrying a bright red Adidas bag. He stops, looks behind him and puts his hand on his thighs. He gasps for air.

  ‘Hey aye. It is. What’s his name?’

  The boy reaches into his pocket, pulls something out and shakes it, puts it to his mouth. He sucks in some magic gas. Reinvigorated, he darts sharp to the left under the bright yellow cubed M of the Hadrian Park Metro station. They watch him go.

  ‘Dunno, but he’s got a weird fuckin heed on him.’

  The Chevette passes the station and Hash catches a glimpse of his back running up the station steps, three at a time.

  His neck smears.

  ‘Ayaz man!’

  ‘Man,’ Foggy says. ‘Seen his fuckin sister?’

  ‘What?’ Hash moans.

  ‘Fuckin melon heed there’s sister. She’s fit as.’

  ‘Holly?’ Hash mumbles, trying to keep his head from turning.

  ‘Holly! That’s her. Man, she’s fuckin horny. Whore-knee!’

  Foggy spits out of the window.

  ‘Bet she’s dirty, she’s got that look.’

  ‘What look? She’s only a fuckin bairn man,’ Hash says. ‘Y’seen their mam, Trudi?’

  ‘Aye!’

  ‘She’s fit as.’

  Foggy bounces up and down.

  ‘Aye, man.’

  ‘She’s always in The Club with some bearded prick.’

  ‘Woo hoo! I’d do em both! Smash em all over the gaffe!’

  Hash snorts.

  ‘What?’ Foggy says.

  ‘As if they’d go for an ugly cunt like you?’

  ‘Listen to fuckin Blister Boy there’ Foggy spins. ‘Tyneside’s answer to Julio fuckin Iglesias.’

  Foggy puts his head out of the window.

  ‘Woo hoo! All over the gaffe! Woo hoo!’

  In the city, and Rick E. Delaney sits with his Hush Puppies up on the news desk alone in the office, his hands clasped across the crown of his skull.

  The telephone screams like a startled bird.

  And his eyes pendulum away from the TV screen.

  He ignores it.

  ‘Get stuffed,’ he says. ‘I’m busy.’

  His eyeballs return to the screen.

  Delaney is totally alone, even the stone sub has gone home. Delaney’s job to man the phones and make The Calls every hour or so to the emergency services, to check if anything is happening on The Ke
rnel’s patch.

  It isn’t.

  Not yet.

  He sighs and reaches for the news desk TV’s remote control. He pushes up the volume.

  The BBC’s dreary dreadful new rival to Coronation Street - grey Cockneys living angry lives - drones on above his head. It seems to have been on for days - and still nothing has happened.

  The phone rings.

  ‘Hello, news desk,’ he answers, cursing himself - reflex faster than his brain to the draw. The handset is cold against his ear.

  ‘Hullo!’ a dusty old voice says - too loud, ‘Hullo! Who’s that?’

  ‘Oh God,’ Delaney sighs. ‘Here we go.’

  ‘Hullo!

  ‘Hullo!

  ‘Is that the news pay-pah?’

  Delaneys eyes drift to the window, wondering if it’s a full moon. All newspaper hacks know the phone nuts come out for a howl on a full moon. Delaney looks out the window, it’s hard to tell – the sky still seems to burn like it’s midday.

  ‘It is, yes.’

  Never engage, never - ever - engage.

  ‘It’s Mr Crosby here, Alf Crosby - C. R. O. S. B. Y - Alfie - from Notts Flats, number four. Y’know me. I get your pay-pah delivered every night. I want to complain.’

  The words drop into Delaney’s ear like ash from an urn.

  ‘We have one hundred and fifty thousand readers sir, give or take a few, we can’t know you all personally, ha ha,’ Delaney drips, his eyes fixing themselves back on the relentless misery of Albert Square. ‘Now, if it’s about your delivery sir, you’ll need to call back on Monday and talk to our circulation depar . . .’

  ‘I’ve got me bloody paypah, I get it every night. I have done since the ‘forties. I want y’to do a bloody story for me for a change.’

  ‘What about, sir?’ he sighs.

  ‘The telly! The stoopit bloody telly.’

  Delaney turns and looks at the old cream, almost worn out news desk phone. He can almost feel the old man inside his Soviet-style concrete eyesore by the river, scrunched up in his easy chair with abrasive doilies on the arms.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I want to complain. I want to complain about the total crap they put inside the telly,’ he says, false teeth slapping against his gums like broken old slippers. ‘Put me through to the editor. I want him to stop it.’

  ‘Stop it? Sorry? How?’

  ‘The telly! Are y’listenin or what? Crap telly. The telly’s crap man. There’s bugger all on but these bloody whingein Cockneys. Miserable bastards. It’s crap man. I want y’to stop it.’

  ‘We’re nothing to do with the television. I suggest . . .’

  ‘I want to speak to the editor.’

  ‘It’s late Ralph, the editor is not here.’

  ‘What do you mean ‘he’s not here?’ It’s the newspay-pah, isn’t it? I want to speak to him. And I want to speak to him, now.’

  ‘I mean ‘he’s not here’. I’m the only one here.’

  ‘Then why can’t y’help me?’

  ‘But? What is it you want me to do, exactly?’

  ‘The telly, it’s crap man. I want you to stop it.’

  ‘Ralph.’

  ‘Alf!’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, This is a newspaper office. Can I suggest you telephone the BBC and . . .’

  ‘The BBC! The BBC? Don’t get me started. The bloody BBC. What a load of old shite. Bloody licence fee. Southern bastards taxin the telly, they don’t give a toss about us up here man. Have y’seen it lately? There’s nothin on but whingein bloody cockneys, why don’t they . . .’

  ‘Look Ralph, I’m sorry. This is a newspaper office and I’m extremely busy, if you would like . . .’

  ‘But there’s nothin on the telly. ITV’s a load of bloody crap. It’s for folk who’ve had their bloody brains kicked out their heeds. Bloody adverts. There was an advert on before for bloody tampons. TAMPONS! What the hell do I want wi bloody tampons? Eh?’

  ‘Well, Ralph . . .’

  ‘And I can’t tune it in to that new Channel Four one and . . .’

  ‘Turn it off.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Turn the bloody thing off then!’

  The line pauses for a beat, a Cockney voice squeaks across the bar in the Queen Vic: ‘We need to tawk.’

  ‘Did y’just swear at me sonny?’

  ‘I’m simply telling you that we are not the BBC nor ITV and if you don’t like what’s on the television then clearly you can . . .’

  ‘Y’swore at me. I’m one of y’readers. Y’supposed to look out for people like me. I pay y’bloody wages. I want to speak to the editor.’

  Delaney changes the receiver, warm and damp now, to his other ear.

  ‘I didn’t swear at you, you must have misheard me . . .’

  ‘I was in the war y’know and . . .’

  ‘Oh God, here we go.’

  ‘What? What? We died for little bastards like you. Y’little . . .’

  The pressure builds up in Delaney’s chest.

  ‘Listen. Ralph. Like I say, I’m extremely busy and . . .’

  ‘Y’little bashtad,’ the old man’s teeth have slipped. ‘Whatsh y’name? I? I know the owner. Whatsh y’name?’

  Delaney tries to force his lips closed, but:

  ‘Haven’t you got a chip pan to leave on or something?’

  It sounded like someone else’s voice, manic.

  Silence.

  ‘I beg y’pardon?’

  ‘Haven’t you got anything better to do with your time than phone newspaper offices?’ Delaney almost screams, raw nerves spilling into the receiver. ‘What’s the matter with you old farts?’

  ‘I can phone who the hell I like! I’ve bought y’pay-pah for forty odd years. And it’s crap, mind you, too. But that’s another story. The writin in there these days, it’s like, it’s like – it’s like it’s written for them bloody morons. And, anyway. And. Y’supposed to watch out for people like me. And. And. The telly. . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The telly . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘. . . it’s crap man.’

  ‘For God’s . . . Switch the bloody thing off then!’ he shouts.

  The words run along and leap from his tongue like four brats from a diving board.

  ‘You. Silly. Old. Prick.’

  ‘Right! Right! Right you!’ the old man screams like Monty Python. ‘Put me through, put me through to y’editor. I’ll send me grandson round there, he’s the hardest in his school and he’ll. He’ll. He’ll help me! We’ll kick y’fuckin heed in. Y’fuckin . . .’

  ‘Just hurry up and die grandad. Your pension costs me money.’

  Delaney slams down the receiver.

  ‘Jesus H Christ,’ he mutters, smearing his eyes with the palms of his hands.

  He looks up at the rota - there it is in red.

  Late shift. Late shift. Late shift. Forever, ever more.

  Munroe has scrawled ‘ad infinitum’ next to his name in the final slug. Delaney had looked it up in the dictionary; endlessly, for so long as to seem endless.

  Delaney settles in his seat and looks up to the television – Eastenders still bores on, probably for at least another 30-years.

  The phone rings.

  Again, mindless reflex is first to his wrist.

  ‘Hello, news desk.’

  ‘Y’little bash-tad,’ Dusty clicks through his false teeth. ‘How DARE you hang up on me, I’ll come round there and . . .’

  Delaney hangs up.

  ‘Jesus!’