Playfair
Page 21
A cluster of receding stars
This is the closest thing to an actual cerebral orgasm Rick Delaney will ever feel.
It’s as if a celestial being has punched a fist hole through the keg of his skull and is now giving his brain stem a silky-handed wank.
Four little words, four little words to have him blow his mental load all over the newsagent’s floor.
EXCLUSIVE
by Rick Delaney.
‘Exclusive!’ Delaney says. ‘Yes! Ha ha ha!’
He stands next to the rack of packet peanuts of different roastings, a copy of The Sunday Sorted in his hands. And there it is in black, white and red - his first ever byline in a national newspaper.
EXCLUSIVE
By Rick Delaney.
No matter that The SS sub-editor had deleted the E. between his names.
‘I never even had a middle name! I made it up! Ha ha ha.’
Funniest joke in the world.
‘Ha ha ha.’
Ever.
‘Ha ha.’
No matter that he has betrayed his own employer with a story they’ll be following up – without him, now – for weeks, months even.
‘Ha. There you go Munroe, I resign.’
He looks up for someone to share his victory.
‘Exclusive! By RICK DELANEY! Ha ha ha!’
A man straight up off a friend’s floor stands red eyed in last night’s clothes, his Number Ones. He pulls a bottle of Lucozade from the fridge.
An old woman looks at birthday cards.
Neither cares.
‘Ha ha ha!’
Page seven lead, front of the book and a right hander – a good page; readers don’t like to look left.
He reads the headline.
DRUG GANG SUNK.
Followed by the strapline:
‘Crime Boss Dead. Massive Blow To International Dealers As Cannabis Cargo Goes Up In Smoke.’
It howls over a photograph that could be the the burnt corpse of a whale - scorched ribs twisting up to the sky. The gay forensic scientist Armstrong sifting Play Fair’s dust in his white suit.
‘Nice pic DJ.’
Delaney had unclipped the negative from the snapper’s rack and handed it to an SS agent in the back alley for wiring immediately to London.
The actual text itself is a distant cousin to the limp copy Delaney had filed last night just before The Sunday Sorted’s deadline.
Even the bored Cockney copy taker on the other side of the line had done what she could to spice it up.
‘This fella, burnt alive, was he? Boat full of drugs, was it?’
He could hear her adjusting it as she went.
Now on the page, Delaney’s trembling fawn has been transformed into a turbo-charged Pegasus.
He’s quick to adopt the bastard child.
‘Ha ha ha,’ he says to the peanuts. ‘Ha ha ha.’
The SS’s sub-editors had dismantled his copy and customised it like a wealthy teenager with his first car. All chrome wheels, body kits and furry dice.
Not lying exactly.
But where Delaney had been cautious with uncertainties, this new copy is muscular and assured of the ‘facts’.
It’s like they’d injected it with steroids.
A European drug overlord is dead.
A teenage boy is being sought as the key suspect.
Even Armstrong the gay forensic scientist’s quotes read like nobody actually speaks – assigned an off-the-peg identity; Boffin.
But?
‘What the?’
Delaney’s eyes twist to a story in a long thin box, a sidebar which runs on the right side of the same page, HIS page:
BRITAIN’S YOUNGEST GANGSTER?
He crumples the newspaper around this intruder.
‘By Frank Carrick, Crime Reporter’
Frank Carrick, an SS legend. Press awards hanging from his belt like scalps.
‘Frank Carrick? But? But this is MY story!’
Carrick’s story is news to Delaney.
‘Eh?’
It explains how this is a drug boat police forces all the way up the British and mainland Europe sides of the North Sea had heard of - but never seen.
Play Fair had been stopped from time to time, for sure - a bit like Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. But nothing had ever been found aboard except for, recently, a pair of young vegetarian hippies who never seemed to catch any fish.
BRAZEN.
An ‘Interpol source’ says the fire was ‘the biggest hash bong in history.’
‘How did Carrick get all this?’ Delaney says.
‘This isn’t over. Expect repurcussions.’
NEXT GENERATION?
A teenager seen twice at the scene, could he be Britain’s Youngest Gangster?
‘Really?’
The only identifying factor they have is that he was carrying a bright red Adidas bag.
The bald newsagent clears his throat.
‘Alright, alright,’ Delaney says. ‘Keep your hair on.’
He drops the copy he’d been reading and pulls two fresh copies from the wrack, takes a step towards the till.
Pauses.
He steps back and empties the rack, ten copies balanced over his right arm.
‘Two pounds fifty.’
Delaney steps out into the spotlight and stops. He turns the top copy to page seven.
‘Ha ha ha!’
‘EXCLUSIVE! By Rick Delaney! RICK DELANEY!’
He marches forward into the blazing morning sun, his news blanket over his arm. He pauses to read his name.
It’s still there.
EXCLUSIVE
By Rick Delaney.
‘Ha ha ha!’
He walks.
Stops again.
Reads.
‘Rick Delaney! Ha ha ha!’
A young lad walks a fat lass in a gold party dress to the Metro station – looking shifty, hoping none of his friends or family are up this early on a Sunday to see him with quite this grade of minger.
‘Rick Delaney!’ he shouts to the happy couple, tipping the open newspaper in their direction. ‘Page seven! Ha ha ha. Page seven!’
A man comes out of the station, newspaper in hand.
A red top with a Nazi typeface – The Sunday Sorted.
‘Yes! Good man!’
The startled man turns.
‘What the fuck?’
Delaney salutes.
‘Page seven!’
The man hurries away.
‘Page seven!’ Delaney shouts after him. ‘Ha ha ha.’
Delaney turns up the path of a Victorian terrace and puts his key in the door.
He pushes.
His three flatmates are either sleeping off hangovers or away home to southern towns for the weekend.
The red lights flash 02 on the answerphone.
Beep.
He presses the LISTEN button.
‘Cunt,’ says the message. ‘You dirty little fuckin, two faced cunt.’
‘Munroe!’
‘You’re a fuckin cunt Delaney. You’re fucked. I’ll be round there later to kick your fuckin . . .’
Delaney presses the NEXT MESSAGE button.
‘Eff off, Fat Boy,’ he says. ‘I resign.’
Beep.
‘Hi, this is a message for err,’ he can hear the caller flicking a notepad. ‘Dick, Dick Delaney.
‘It’s Frank Carrick from The Sunday Sorted. Great tale mate. Well done. I’m on my way up. The editor’s mad keen on finding this Gangster Junior kid. His name is Berry, Edward Berry. Lives in a place called North Shields. Silly little prick broadcast his name out of the fuckin radio! Anyway mate, we need to get to him before the dailies. I’m on the 5.30 from Kings Cross. I’m staying at The Grand Hotel at a place called Tynemouth. If you could meet me there, that’d be ace.
There’s a pause, as Carrick seems to hang up.
But.
‘Oh, and don’t do anything til I get there.
’
Beep. Beep.
The tape rewinds.
‘What the?’
Delaney feels like he’s been anally violated.
‘This is MY story!’ he says to the phone. ‘I don’t need your sodding help.’
He sits down with his newspaper banket.
‘‘Don’t do anything til I get there,’?’ he says, stroking the top copy open at page seven. ‘Frank bloody Carrick. Who the hell does he think he is?’
He looks down at his name, wondering if he can buy a picture frame at this time on a Sunday morning.
‘By Rick Delaney,’ he mutters, punctured, but only slightly.
‘By Rick Delaney.’
Midday down by a row of five houses high over the Fish Quay, and Ted Berry peers around a little lighthouse that helps guide sailors away from the treacherous black midden rocks that guard the Tyne.
The river fleks and flashes her golden way out of the land down below like a fat dancer in a sequin dress, splaying herself between the piers.
‘Fuckinhell.’
Berry scans the parked cars.
Three Fords, two Vauxhalls and a Metro.
No silver Mercedes.
No sign of Talbot.
He checks again.
Then makes his break for the middle house across the road from the lighthouse, number 3 Tyne Street - the Wujkowskis’ residence.
He steps through Wedge’s open front door and raps his knuckles - one pint of Samson - fast and hard on the frosted glass.
‘Hurry the fuck up!’ he fidgets.
Two newspapers sit on the mat at Berry’s feet, a dull but worthy broadsheet and a tabloid; The Sunday Sorted - Trudi’s little illiberal vice for the weekend.
A pair of black Adidas Samba trainers sit carefully placed side by side on the doormat. They’re brand spanking new – in need of a good scuffing, christening with dog shit.
‘Nice.’
He puts his foot next to them, checking the size.
Size 11 – three sizes too big.
‘Trudi’s gettin knobbed, again.’
Socks tap the laminate flooring on their way to the passage door and a white shape assembles on the other side of the pane.
‘Holly?’
Berry pulls his sticking lemon Ocean Pacific away from his skin. He primes his face muscles for a winning smile.
The door swings open and snags on the tabloid.
‘Alright fuck hole?’
Wedge pushes the door harder, shredding the first six pages.
Berry stands down the carefully briefed muscles in his face.
‘Spunk breath.’
‘Why don’t y’just fuckin walk in?’ Wedge says.
‘Y’feet grown?’ Berry asks.
‘What?’
He follows Wedge, blinded by the violent shift from light to shade, like a scuba diver down a shotline from the front door to the kitchen, heading towards the light and the muddy sound of a mono radio; 'Frankie, do you remember me. Wow Frankie, do you re-mem-ber. Oh how you . . .'
The kitchen smells of burnt toast.
‘Hi Ted.’
Berry’s eyes try to flick away their cataracts.
Trudi is sitting at the table, a menthol cigarette sticking out of the ashtray. A half eaten slice of burnt toast sits at her wrist, smeared with butter.
‘Hallo Mrs Wuj . . . Trudi.’
Trudi’s eyes are tired and raw in their leather sockets – then, magic; arrows fire out east and west, wrap around her eyes and fly out to her ears, lifting her face.
And she smiles.
‘How y’doin today handsome?’
‘Sound, sound’ Berry beams back his reply. ‘Ha heh heh.’
‘Oh Bez, Bez,’ Trudi sighs. ‘Bez Berry. That dirty laugh of yours is gonna get you in trouble one day.’
She said it almost like she wished that were now.
‘Ha heh heh.’
Wedge pulls an industrial size box of Kelloggs Cornflakes from a cupboard.
‘Get your friend some coffee Jay.’
‘What?’ he knees the broken door closed. ‘D.I.Y.’
‘Jay-son!’ she scolds, sighs. ‘Little turd.’
She gets up, ruffles Berry’s hair.
‘I’ll make you some, petal.’
She pulls out a silver foil sack of Unexploited Beans from an earthenware jar and pours them into a tall chrome and glass jar.
‘None of that instant shite in this house Bez.’
Berry smiles.
He reverses onto the edge of a chair.
Tobacco smoke breezes up and tangles in the air over the ashtray like ghosts doing the tango.
Trudi lifts two mugs from the drainer and sits down.
‘I haven’t managed to speak to Foggy,’ she says. ‘He wasn’t in when I knocked.’
Berry and Wedge lock eyes.
‘None left,’ Wedge says.
‘What?’
‘Sold it.’
She pushes down the plunger, forcing the Colombian beans to the bottom of the glass jug.
‘Who to?’
‘Crosby. Sean Crosby. Kid from school.’
‘Oh. None left? Really?’
‘None.’
‘Oh.’
‘Hiya,’ another female awaking late on a Sunday, at the doorway.
Berry turns.
‘Hi gorgeous,’ Holly says.
The two sleepy words feel like tongues in his ears.
‘Oh, hiya. Ha heh heh, Holly.’
His eyes fill with peach, the mound of her naked belly, a thin downy fluff has grown in the twist of her belly button pointing down to her fanny, ever cleft into camel toes by tight denim shorts.
He could lick her from here.
‘Ha heh heh.’
The tiniest nick in Berry’s cock, it’d burst all over the kitchen table.
Old woman’s tits . . .
He performs an exercise in mind control.
Old woman’s snatch . .
Old woman’s tits!
Fuck’s sakes man.
It doesn’t work.
‘Slut,’ Wedge says.
‘Jay-son! Don’t call Holly that, she’s your sister.’
‘Little dick.’
Trudi places his mug on the table, a smell direct from Cartagena wafts up his nose.
‘Tah.’
She sits down.
‘What you two up to today?’ Trudi asks.
She looks like an expensive old chair, worn by experience but the quality craftsmanship retains its shape. Will, Berry’s brother, is obsessed with her, ‘she’d teach you a few fuckin things Teddy boy.’
Milfs, he calls them.
Berry just gives in, allows his erection to take the controls.
‘Dunno,’ Berry sighs. ‘Ha heh heh.’
‘Smashin somethin,’ Holly says, pulling open the Smeg fridge; light blue, full of inedible absurdities. ‘Or pinchin.’
She turns and glides towards Berry, each step powering an erotic battering ram - he puts a spoon in his coffee and starts to stir, concentrating on the spinning black liquid with absolute intent.
Granny tits!
Granny snatch!
His idiotic cock pushes at his shorts.
Fuck’s sakes . . .
Granny tits?
He puts the coffee to his mouth; it’s dark, harsh and strong, varnishing the back of his mouth and tongue.
‘Ack?’
He gags and looks into the blackness, he reaches for the milk and tips in a heavy splash, he follows up with four scoops from the sugar bowl.
Wedge screeches a chair on the tiles and sits. He starts to shovel soggy cornflakes into his mouth. A slither of milk drips down his chin. He catches it with his spoon and puts it back in the mixer.
‘Pig,’ Holly says.
‘Cock sucker,’ he replies, the orange mush churning around in his mouth.
‘Jay-son!’ Trudi says.
Wedge looks up to Berry.
‘We
waitin for Sam?’
‘Sam?’ Trudi breathes, fresh cigarette at lips.
She lights it.
‘He’s such a good looking lad, all grown up already.’
‘Uh hum,’ Holly agrees, looks up to the door.
‘He’s a fag,’ Wedge slurps, nods at Berry. ‘He wants to bum Bez. Always has.’
‘Gay?’ Trudi says. ‘I don’t think so. And, anyway, so what if he was?’
Wedge lets out a rapturous burp.
Berry resists the urge to applaud.
‘Jay-son!’
An encore breaks in his throat.
‘Boll . . .
It briefly inflates his clamped lips.
‘. . .ocks.’
Resistance is futile.
‘Ha heh heh.’
‘Bollocks the fuckin homo,’ Wedge says. ‘Should’ve been here by now.’
The stairs creak behind Berry’s head and there’s footfalls on the old floorboards.
Holly beams a smile towards where Berry sits by the door.
‘Y’gonna say hello?’ she says.
‘Eh?’ Berry asks ‘What? Sorry?’
He feels a figure hovering behind him – something tells him it’s the owner of the trainers.
He turns.
‘Err, hello Mrs Wujkowski . . .’
And Samba-man Sam ‘Smithy’ Smith, the sun tanned, sleepy-eyed sleepover adonis, walks into the kitchen.
‘Lads,’ he nods.
Heading east from the City in the newspaper’s pool car, and the sun has finally found Rick minus-the-E Delaney.
‘Ouch?’ he groans. ‘What the hell?’
He tips the rear view mirror down through its axis. The white line that runs up his scalp is now a burning red stream.
‘Ouch!’
And his entire face is sunburnt.He lifts the two hair curtains that flop down to either side of his forehead, a red arrow flies up through two white clouds of skin.
Gotcha.
‘Bloody sun.’
He knocks the mirror up.
Sighs.
He looks down at the newspaper, open on the passenger seat; page seven.
He strokes it.
Smiles.
‘By Rick Delaney,’ he mumbles, banging both hands on the steering wheel. ‘EXCLUSIVE! By RICK DELANEY! Ha ha ha.’
He hits the radio’s ‘on’ button.
An American woman is singing; ‘Walkin on Sunshine, whoa, whoa, walkin on sunshine – whoa oh oh. And don’t it feel good . . .’
Delaney sings along in tune, tapping his fingers on the wheel.
‘Oh whoa, yeah. Whoah, whoah. Don’t it feel good, hey. Ooh, alright now.’
He smiles.
‘I’ll need a new suit for London,’ he says. ‘Armani? Boss?’
He turns right off the dual carriageway at the sign for North Shields, heading towards the river.
‘Where will I live? Hammersmith? Fulham? Clapham? Kensington, maybe?’
The car tips down the steep bank to the fish quay, in front of him the little yellow ferry heads out across to the south side of the river like a little bath toy.
He takes a left and passes a pub with a mast head ripped off a ship planted outside, then on passed the ice factory. He heads along the river bank towards the gathered masts, indicates, and parks.
The same spot as yesterday.
Now what?
The old man is there, rod tipped to the water.
He could have been there all day and night, his wife avoidance strategy. Platinum wedding, still married after all these years.
‘Excuse me sir?’
The man turns.
‘I’m looking for a young boy?’
The man’s face is like an old leather briefcase.
‘Oh, I mean,’ Delaney looks down to the name he’d scrawled on the edge of the newspaper. ‘I’m trying to find a boy called . . . Berry? Yes. Berry. Edward Berry.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Oh.’
The man follows the line from the tip of his rod, it twitches. He gently puts his hand to the line, to test for a bite.
False alarm.
‘Ok, well. Erm?’
‘Try the park son. Hundreds of little bastards up the park.’
‘Where?’
‘The park son, top of Tanners Bank,’ he points. ‘The big fuckin hill.’
In the park, and Ted Berry sits on the back of a park bench licking his wounds.
‘Man,’ Wedge says. ‘What time do y’reckon Hash and Foggy’ll show?’
Berry’s thoughts are on Smithy and four naked breasts.
‘Hairy arsed bastard,’ Berry mumbles ‘Victor fuckin Mature prick.’
Smithy had decided to stay behind drinking coffee with the women – have them admire his pubes, probably.
‘Bez?’
‘Aye?’
‘Hash and Foggy?’
‘What?’
‘What time do y’reckon they’ll be here?’
‘I don’t fuckin know, do I?’
‘Reckon they’ll show?’
‘Aye. Course. For sure.’
‘Aye?’
‘They were fuckin gaggin for a spliff. Crosby’s got their stuff. He’s fucked.’
‘I hope they kick his fuckin head in.’
An image flashes into Berry’s mind - the roasted stoner and his skinny sidekick flying up the deck like two startled birds as Talbot returned to Kirrin for the second can of fuel.
Stoners, never fighters.
He shakes his head.
‘Doubt it,’ he sighs.
Berry spits out across the subway, but there’s no fire in it. It falls limp to the path.
He wipes his chin.
KP ambles down the path.
‘Turd burglars?’ he greets them.
No reply.
He sits on the back of the chair beside Berry.
‘Alright, fuckstick?’
Berry grunts.
‘Fuck’s wrong wi you?’
Cars skim between the railings above the subway.
‘He’s in a mood,’ Wedge says.
‘Why?’
‘He’s fucked off coz Smithy’s nobbin me sister,’ Wedge says.
‘Fuck, really?’
Wedge sits on the bench opposite Berry, bored. Cigarette at his lips.
‘Lucky bastard!’ KP says, then KP across the path at Wedge, confused.
‘And y’not arsed?’
‘Me?’
‘Y’know, Smithy, y’sister and that?’
‘Why’d I be bothered?’
‘Dunno. She’s y’sister. Y’fuckin twin sister.’
‘She’s a slag.’
‘Man, all the fanny love that snake hipped fuckin dago don’t they, eh?’ KP witters on.
Berry stares at him.
‘Though, hey?’ KP continues, thoughtfully. ‘I always thought Smithy was a bender.’
‘So did I,’ Wedge says.
They both look at Berry.
‘What?’ Berry says. ‘What the fuck y’lookin at me for?’
KP smirks, turns to Wedge.
‘Hey, Wedge,’ he says. ‘Bez is only y’fuckin best mate coz he wanted to knob y’sister. He’ll fuck y’off now, for sure. Ha ha . . . Ha.’
Berry looks over to the bench across the thin path, Wedge is sitting on the back of the seat’s upright his feet on the planks – a mirror image, albeit with blonde hair and a fat head.
A negative charge fires across the two points of the circuit.
‘Ah, I mean,’ KP says, feeling it. ‘I’m only jokin. And that.’
Wedge looks like the man at the Oscars, the favourite who didn’t win in close up – hand in a pocket crumpling up a finely tuned acceptance speech.
Berry outstretches his leg, an involuntary act of his tendons.
KP looks around for distraction.
Finds it.
‘Aw fuck,’ he says. ‘Look who’s here.’
A gaggling teen
age puss wave seeps down the hill. Loads of kids, maybe 20.
Smoking.
Stoned.
Sean Crosby and Mason lead the way. They settle amongst the swings at the top curl of the grey stone chip path.
‘Someone’ll stab that prick oneday,’ KP says.
‘I’m goin up there and gettin our fuckin gear back,’ Wedge says.
He steps off the seat.
Wedge walks three feet.
Stops.
‘Go on then,’ KP says. ‘We’re watchin.’
Wedge pulls out his Regals, lights a fresh one.
‘Maybes later.’
He turns and looks down to the hole under the road.
No sign of Hash and Foggy, the dynamic duo.
‘Where the fucks Scabman and Dobbin?’ he sighs.
Yellow plastic wheels flash through the subway railings and around the top of the park. They turn down the black path towards them.
‘Here’s Runty-bollocks,’ KP says.
They watch his trajectory, for want of something better to do.
Runt overtakes a lone man in a suit walking down the path – a rare sight in Norther Park. Only ever tools of the state – usually the wag man or the CID, except they always travel in pairs.
‘Copper!’ Runt shouts at the world’s newest, most important investigative reporter - Rick Delaney, minus the E.
‘Fuck off copper!’
Three minutes earlier, and Rick Delaney drives up the steep hill that leads away from the fish quay, as instructed.
A swarm of teenagers heads up the street on the opposite side of the road spilling acne puss on the flagstone path as they go.
They turn right and walk through gates to green trees that must be a park.
‘Kids?’ Delaney says. ‘Spotty kids! That’ll be him!’
He does a U-turn and pulls up to the kerb a third of the way down the hill that’s as near as vertical as it’s possible to get and still build a road and not a lift. He switches off the engine.
‘Right? Right then.’
He looks in the mirror.
‘Come on Rick,’ he says to the red face. ‘Come on.’
He gets out of the car, then reaches back in for his suit jacket from where it hangs next to the rear passenger window, locks the car and follows the spoor of cheap perfume through the park gates.
The kids are sprawled out amongst the swings like a Fifties film. Except there’s no James Dean or Marlon Brando, Natalie Wood or even Jayne Mansfield anywhere nearby.
Just teenage kids like teenage kids everywhere.
All puss and pubic hair.
‘Little mutants,’ Delaney mutters. ‘Oh God, please. I hope this Berry boy is there.’
The ugliest kid of all, King Zit, sits on a swing, another lad sits next to him like a faithful hound. Maybe two dozen other kids lounge on the roundabout, or sit near his feet on the grass.
All of them are smoking.
He looks up to the road, his car isn’t far away – a 30 second sprint down hill, maybe less.
‘Come on Rick, how hard can it be?’
He forces his feet down the path towards the swings and sees the red Adidas bag at King Zit’s feet.
‘Is it?’
He pauses.
‘Jesus!’
A wet towel flits up inside his chest.
‘It is! It’s him!’
He turns his head to look back from where he came, contemplating retreat, then looks again at the swings.
King Zit has something at his fingers, he sticks his tongue out over his lips in deep concentration. His French waiter’s moustache quivers as he licks the spliff papers together.
‘God, Edward Berry,’ he mumbles. ‘You’re an ugly boy.’
The boy looks the part - Gangster Junior.
Delaney covers the final few feet.
And joins them.
‘Hi,’ he says.
Face to face with Britain’s Youngest Gangster.
The kid jerks his head up, rocking gold curtain hoops in each ear, he pulls a sunburnt arm over his handiwork.
Lighter in his hand.
‘What?’ he says.
He locks both ankles around the bag.
Delaney pulls his silver cigarette case from his pocket.
‘Got a light?’ he says making a light-me-up sign with his thumb.
‘Nah,’ King Zit replies. ‘Fuck off.’
The assembled youth of today snigger.
‘What?’ says the boy on the next swing, his tongue too fat for his mouth. He talks just like a dog would, if you could train him.
‘Hi,’ Delaney says to him.
‘What y’want?’ says Dogboy.
Dogboy has a cream hearing aid in the centre of a badly swollen ear.
‘Light?’
‘Don’t smoke.’
Delaney wipes his wrist against his scorched brow.
‘Ouch!’
The trainee thugs snigger.
‘Ha ha ha. Hot still chaps, erm, eh?’
Delaney looks at his watch.
‘And it’s after seven o’clock already,’ he dribbles. ‘Where does time go when you’re young, eh?’
He fiddles with his silver cigarette case, pulls out a Gauloise.
‘What’s with the gay fuckin box?’ says the kid with the fat tongue.
‘What? Oh, it’s . . .’
A sickly looking kid on a BMX with bright yellow wheels zips past them down the path.
‘Copper!’ he shouts. ‘Fuck off copper!’
He watches the kid go down the curling path to the hole under the main road and join another, smaller group of kids by the subway.
A gaggle of the girls titter at Runt’s cheek as he flings by.
‘We’ve not done anythin,’ King Zit says.
‘Sorry?’ Delaney says.
‘We gettin nicked or what?’ says Dogboy.
‘What?’ Delaney says. ‘Oh, ha ha. I’m not a policeman. I’m a reporter. Ha ha ha.’
‘A reporter?’ King Zit snorts. ‘Professional fuckin grass.’
‘A what?’
The teenager pulls out the spliff, it’s long and thin – clumsily made.
He lights it.
‘I’m looking for someone,’ Delaney smiles, trying to send messages to the boy through his eyes.
‘Who you a reporter for?’ asks Dogboy.
Delaney drags on his posh cigarette.
Coughs, mechanically.
Stupid, really – seeing as it’s not lit.
‘The Kernel, well. I mean. The Sunday Sorted. Now.’
And it’s true, sort of.
‘Ah, right,’ King Zit nods his approval. ‘Me mam reads The SS.’
‘Anyway, can I have a word with you in private - Edward Berry?’
He said the name with a flourish, like a trickster pulling a rabbit fresh from the folds of a fat arse.
‘What?’
Delaney smiles, almost winks. Looks down at the red bag the ugly kid is protecting with his legs.
‘Oh come on Teddy. May I call you Teddy? Come on. I know who you are,’ he nods at the glowing spliff hanging beneath the ugly boy’s stupid moustache. ‘I know that’s whacky baccy you’re smoking.’
There’s a choir of laughter amongst the teens.
‘‘Whacky baccy!’ Did he just say ‘whacky baccy’?’
The two butt ugly boys look at each other.
‘Who the fuck’s ‘Edward Berry?’’
‘Bez,’ says one of the females sitting on the grass. ‘Edward Berry. That’s Bez’s real name.’
King Zit smiles, teeth already an unhealthy yellow.
‘Ah Bez? Y’want Bez mister.’
‘Bez?’
King Zit rises from his swing, it rocks back and forth.
‘Wow!’ Delaney steps back, holding out his hands. ‘Come on now, Teddy. Don’t do anything you’ll regr . . .’
‘I’m not Bez, y’dick head,’ King Zit says. ‘Looker.’
He
points down the hill to the subway hole.
‘That’s the wanker there. The prick with the black hair, sittin on the back of the bench. Tell him Crosby said hello.’
Down the track, and the dominoes keep tumbling towards Edward James Berry.
‘Man,’ KP says, eyes locked on the gang up the path.
He holds a hand over his eyes to protect them from the falling sun.
‘Is he?’
‘What?’ Wedge says, following his eyes.
‘He is. That cunt Crosby’s sendin that copper down here!’
The man winds himself down the curling black path to the subway.
Berry turns his head.
‘Looker.’
The Suit reaches the end of the path, a plastic ‘I’m your pal, honest’ smile stapled to his cheesey, sun-slapped face.
‘Hi, I’m Rick.’
Silence.
Glances exchange.
The man puts his right hand in his pocket and pulls out a silver cigarette case. Selects a fag then makes a slow job of putting it to his mouth.
But there’s already one there.
Unlit at his lips.
‘Oh.’
It takes him a second or so to decide what to do, he puts the new one back in the gay silver box.
‘What a fuckin tool,’ KP mutters.
‘Light?’ he asks, flicking his thumb.
He smiles and flicks his hair to the side.
The skin is pasty white under where the hair had just been. The rest of his face is an uncomfortable looking red.
‘Yup,’ KP says, louder. ‘Prize fuckin bell end.’
Wedge pulls out his green Clipper. Lights it for him.
‘Thanks.’
A wisp of smoke waters his eye.
Coughs.
‘Man,’ Wedge snorts, pulling out a cigarette from his pack of Regal Kingsize. ‘You’re a shit fuckin copper.’
He lights it.
Inhales, deeply.
‘What?’ Delaney glances down at Runt, the now silent boy who’d screamed ‘fuck off copper’ at him up the hill. ‘Ha ha. Don’t be silly, I’m not a policeman.’
The teenagers look at him.
‘My name is Rick E, erm Rick, Rick Delaney – I, I work for The Kernel . . .’
‘ . . well, I mean. I’m really working for The Sunday Sorted. Well, erm.’
His eyes shine like a martyr.
‘I bet this bloke fingers his own anus.’
‘Sorry?’ the man turns to KP.
KP lifts an arse cheek off the back of the chair and pretends to prod his arsehole. He sniffs his fingers and smiles.
The reporter shakes his head and stares, instead, at Edward Berry - like a ditched lover, pleading.
‘The SS?’ Wedge says. ‘You a fuckin Nazi?’
‘Sorry?’ Delaney turns to Wedge.
Coughs again.
‘Me mam says you’re all Nazis,’ Wedge says, exhaling.
‘Sorry?’
‘Live in a 1930s world that never existed - even in the ‘30s. Fred Basset. It’s all a myth. Middle class mythical bullshit.’
‘It’s 1985. Don’t be silly.’
‘Wife beaters and fuckin Wimbledon,’ Wedge is on a roll – Trudi-style. ‘Bank managers, hiding kiddie porn in their potting sheds.’
‘Anyway,’ Delaney shakes his head, re-focuses on Berry.
‘Fuck’s sakes,’ Berry breathes.
‘Which one of you chaps is Edward Berry?’
‘Chaps?’ KP says. ‘Did he just say fuckin ‘chaps’!’
Delaney looks around, then stares at Berry.
‘Teddy,’ he smiles. ‘May I call you Teddy?’
KP and Wedge look at each other.
‘Teddy!’
‘Fuck,’ KP says. ‘Don’t call him Teddy mister.’
‘What did that cunt Crosby say?’ Berry snaps, nods up the bank.
‘Sorry?’
Delaney turns up the hill, where Crosby and gang all stand or slouch, watching.
‘Oh, him? Well, is he one of your, erm, dealers . . . Edward Berry?’
This time the reporter lays the two words of the name like a winning hand; Blackjack.
‘My fuckin what? Dealers? What the fuck y’talkin about?’
‘Hey Bez,’ KP says. ‘This silly prick thinks you’re a fuckin gangster? Or somethin?’
‘Man oh man.’
Delaney’s looks lost, unsure of ‘the facts’.
But the treacle soon returns to his face.
‘Oh come on. Teddy.’
Berry’s legs jerk out in spasm, he slips off the chair to his feet on the path.
‘Stop callin me fuckin TEDDY!’
Delaney steps back.
‘Wow! I know about you Teddy, erm, Edward.’
‘Y’know about me what?’
‘Oh? Ha ha. Do you want me to call you ‘Sir’?’
Berry closes his eyes.
‘Jesus Fuckin Christ. What y’fuckin talkin about, man?’
‘Come now, Teddy. Why don’t we do a deal? My newspaper has lots of money. And a story like this, well . . . Come on, Teddy. Tell me all about your operation. The North Sea? You must have some big connections and . . ’
‘My oper-fuckin-ration? What the fuck?’
Delaney decides to turn middle class preacher of the moral standards, SS style.
‘Those poor young children up there are all smoking YOUR drugs, Teddy and a man is dead and . . .’
‘Crosby told you I SOLD him drugs?’
‘Yes, he did. He did. And. . .’
Berry snaps.
His legs jerk forward and, before he can apply the brakes, he’s accelerating up the path.
‘CUNT!’
Towards Sean Crosby, the hardest boy in the school.
Rick Delaney steps away from the flying boy.
‘Excuse me Teddy but . . . Teddy?’
The teenager is running up the hill.
‘Jesus! What’s he doing? That spotty boy will bloody murder him.’
‘Bez!’ the three other members of The Berry Gang pursue him up the path to the knot of swings.
King Zit and Dogboy stand up, smiling - ready.
King Zit even has time for a final pull on his spliff. He hands it to a girl, readies himself.
‘Bez man!’
All the kids rise from the grass.
Delaney pauses.
Takes a step north.
Reconsiders.
‘Shall I?’ he says.
He looks to the cave under the road not expecting inspiration.
But it’s there, nonetheless.
A man patters out of the subway tunnel, like a panther.
‘What the?’
A panther with a really bad haircut in a Scorpions concert t-shirt.
He ignores Delaney as he goes.
‘Waddle? Was that Chris Waddle? Surely not?’
Delaney can just make out the tour dates written in red ink on the back of his t-shirt.
Trondheim.
Zeebrugge.
Hull.
‘What the hell is going on here?’
Delaney stays where he is.
A wise move.
Up the hill, and Ted Berry is in trouble.
‘Fight!’
‘Fight!’
Big fucking trouble.
‘Fight!’
It’s called Crosby. Sean Crosby.
The Hardest In The School.
And Berry is finding the boy is worthy of the title.
‘Cunt!’ Crosby says. ‘I’ll fuckin kill ya!’
Berry hangs onto Crosby’s back like a jockey breaking in a horse.
But the blows just keep on landing, across Berry’s back, his head, even his legs.
Each hoove shod with a gold sovereign ring.
‘Fight!’
‘Fight!’
‘Fight!’
‘Fuck him Crosby! Fuckin kill him!’
And that’s a female voice. <
br />
‘Kick his fuckin head in!’
Then a friend, solitary.
‘Bez, bite the cunt. Bite the cunt.’
It’s KP.
One pair of testicles, at least, in Berry’s corner.
He sinks his teeth into Crosby’s flesh, as instructed.
It could be the inside of an arm.
‘Aaagh!’
Wallop.
The blows still seem to fly in from all sides, he grabs Crosby’s skull in his armpit, the kid is some sort of octopus.
A blow rings his right ear.
Then the left.
Then the back of his head.
‘Keep out of it Mason,’ KP shouts. ‘Y’fuckin spastic!’
And then the octupus loses half its limbs.
‘Who y’callin a fuckin spastic?’ says Crosby’s dog.
And KP is now losing a fight of his own - with Mason.
‘Aaagh!’ Crosby squeals as Berry bites again. ‘I’ll fuckin . .’
He swings him around.
‘Kill ya . .’
Berry’s teeth lose their hold. He grabs Crosby’s face as best he can, fingers gripping around his ridiculous moustache.
It’s not enough.
He’s gone.
Off into space.
‘Fuck! Me!’
His shoulder hits the stone chip path.
‘Cunt,’ Crosby says, reaching behind his back. ‘Think y’fuckin hard, do ya?’
He pulls out the Bowie knife, draws it from its leather sheath.
Sunlight trickles down the blade like water.
It zips through the air.
‘Shit the fuckin bed.’
Too close.
Berry turns his head and the blade jabs into his flesh – somewhere in his hairline.
He feels it drag, opening the meat above his left ear.
‘Fuckin leg it Bez. Run!’
The killer blow to the throat is imminent, the beat of it taps through Berry’s brain.
One. . .
Two . . .
Three . . ?
. . he’s late.
Crosby has lost the beat.
Unlikely.
‘Mr Berry?’
Berry looks up to see the skinny rocker holding out a hand, his earphones hanging around his throat like a necklace. Shit Euro-metal music plays away to itself.
‘What? Fuck?’
He takes Kristiaan’s hand and is yanked fast to his feet.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ Crosby says, moving the blade to his other hand.
Mason steps to Crosby’s side.
‘Me?’ Kristiaan says. ‘I am a friend of Mr Berry’s here. Ah fosure. And who are you?’
‘Come on then y’cunt,’ Mason shouts.
He throws his hands down to his side and pushes out his idiot’s chin.
‘Fuckin COME ON!’
Mason’s hands are palms out and wide to his sides, open in invitation. Locking and unlocking like a Manchester singer - the classic fuckwit behaviour of someone who thinks a fat mouth and his friends can do the fighting for him.
‘Okay,’ Kristiaan says, stepping forward.
His fist crunches straight into Mason’s throat, a direct blow to the Adam’s apple.
Efficient brutality.
The crowd winces.
‘Ohhhhh!’
‘Fuckinhell!’ Berry turns his head.
Mason gasps for air, hands clawing at his neck.
And falls to the ground.
‘He’s killed him!’ a girl screams.
Kristiaan steps forward and brings a black boot.
Stomp.
Stomp.
Stomp.
Down three times on Mason’s nose.
Crosby steps back, flashes his knife through the air.
‘Come on then CUNT!’
He slashes out at the foreigner.
‘Waarom wilt u mijn vriend kwetsen?’ Kristiaan says, waiting for the blade to reach the end of its arc.
Crosby turns to throw the next blow.
But.
Crunch!
Kristiaan volleys Crosby in the testicles with his steel toecap boot.
Crisp.
Perfect.
‘Fuck me!’
Instantly saving the State thousands in child benefits.
A girl screams.
‘SEAN!’
Perhaps sensing her council house application turning to paste alongwith her boyfriend’s nuts.
Two dozen teenagers fall silent for the first time ever on this patch of council land.
The cars whizz whizz over the subway hole.
Crosby falls, curling up into a ball even before he hits the floor.
‘Gah!’
Kristiaan is stone silent.
Calm.
Every kid now thinks this bloke’s haircut isn’t quite so bad afterall.
Berry isn’t one of them.
He can feel hot blood trickling down from behind his ear.
‘Man, oh fuckin man.’
He puts his fingers to it. He looks down on Crosby, curled up with both hands clutching a hairy bag of testicle puree.
‘Now, young man,’ Kristiaan says. ‘I am going to damage you for hurting my friend.’
Kristiaan picks up the Bowie knife from the floor.
The crowd groans.
‘Man,’ Wedge says. ‘He’s gonna fuckin kill him!’
But Kristiaan picks up its leather sheath, slips the knife into it and throws it.
‘Mr Veg. A souvenir.’
Wedge catches it.
Mason is breathing - air has found a route through crushed cartillage to his lungs. He spits mucus and blood – acutely aware now that his windpipe not only exists but is a vital part of his anatomy.
‘Now,’ Kristiaan says to Crosby. ‘I hope you do not want to be a model.’
Kristiaan hunches down, grabs him by the collar, looks at him.
‘No. You are much too ugly.’
The teenage boy prostrate before the man – some kind of universe between them.
‘Mister,’ Berry says.
‘Don’t. Please, don’t.’
Too late.
A blow has been struck.
And Crosby’s nose no longer has any form.
Berry turns away.
‘Ah, fuckinhell man!’
The cartilage has met the bone and detonated.
Flattened.
Kristiaan bends down to Crosby’s ear.
‘You will remember this day. Ah fosure. Nobody fucks with my friends. Uzut.’
He lets go of his collar, Crosby’s head falls to the ground.
Unconcious.
Kristiaan stands.
‘Bastaard,’ he says.
Wedge picks up the red bag.
Kristiaan walks over and pulls Berry’s hand away from the side of his head.
‘U bent zeer mooie M. Berry.’
Berry looks up at him.
‘What?’ he says.
‘Ai yai yai,’ Kristiaan sighs. ‘I am sorry. I should have got here earlier. Are you okay?’
Kristiaan’s eyes are like wet stones.
‘It’s alright. Come with me,’ he says. ‘I have thread in my car.’
Berry leans his head to the right as Kristiaan spreads the carpet of black hair.
‘Ow! Man! Fuck’s sakes!’
‘Droevig.’
‘Man,’ Wedge says from the back seat. ‘That’s a canny gash Bez.’
‘Fuck!’ Berry squeals. ‘ME!’
‘Does he need to go to the hospital?’
‘No. It is only small. Two or three stitches. Now hold still.’
Wedge bounces around in the back, playing with the electric windows.
KP and Runt weren’t invited.
And, anyway, they’ve news to spread.
‘Canny motor Kristiaan, where’d y’get it?’
‘It is a hire car.’
‘Ah, right. Cool,’ Wedge says. ‘Your work is c
ool. They pay for everything?’
‘Yes. I have a great job. I like it very much. And you? What do you want to do when you grow up, Mr Veg?’
‘Me?’ the finger pauses on the electric window.
‘I want your fuckin job.’
He pushes the button.
The window whirrs closed.
‘No need to swear Mr Veg. It is not pleasant.’
‘Ah bollocks.’
He opens it again.
It whirrs closed.
‘Fuck. Cunt,’ Wedge says, playing with the window. ‘Cunty cocks. Bollocks.’
Kristiaan smiles at Berry.
‘I was thinking you could maybe join the circus Mr Veg. Mr Veg and his amazingly big head. They could sell souvenir melons – with your face on them.’
Berry snorts.
‘Ha fuckin ha,’ Wedge says.
‘That’s it Mr Berry. Finished. Your mother need never know.’
Berry pulls down the sunshade and looks in the vanity mirror.
A pair of stitches hide like a spider in his hairline.
Wedge’s head appears between the upholstery.
‘Kristiaan saved y’fuckin arse.’
‘Aye, thanks for y’help, fuckin Melonhead.’
Wedge bounces forward.
‘What y’mean? I was there!’
‘Get fucked. Y’fuckin homo.’
Wedge changes the subject.
‘Man, you’re a hard cunt Kris. Where’d you learn to fight like that.’
‘In the army.’
‘They got an fuckin army in Holland? Aren’t you the fuckers with little pen knives?’
‘That is the Swiss, Mr Veg. Ah fosure, the Netherlands has an army. Stop swearing so much, please. Uzut. I do not like it.’
Wedge bops up and down against the back of Berry’s seat.
‘Fuck’s sake. Wanna sit in the front?’
‘Can I?’
‘Of course,’ Kristiaan says.
Berry opens the door.
They change positions.
Berry pushes the Adidas bag onto the floor.
‘Fuckin thing.’
He leans his head back and looks at the roof.
Closes his eyes.
Sighs.
‘What a shit fuckin day.’
‘Mr Berry, you also swear too much.’
Berry shakes his head, looks up at the vinyl roof.
‘Shit the fuckin bed man,’ he says, softly. ‘Shit the fuckin bed.’
‘Hey Kris,’ Wedge says. ‘Can I have a drive?’
‘A drive?’
‘Aye, I know all the gears and that.’
‘Maybe later.’
Wedge plays with the front electric window.
‘Here Bez?’ Wedge says over his shoulder. ‘Bez?’
‘Fuckinhell man,’ Berry turns his face down from the ceiling. ‘What!’
‘Mason was hittin you and that. It wasn’t just Crosby.’
‘No shit, Sherlock.’
‘Man, that was mental. MENTAL! Here, Kris . . .’
‘You two boys like a smoke yes?’
That shut him up.
‘What?’
‘A smoke? I like to have a smoke. It calms me down. I have some here, if you like? We are all very stressed.’
Kristiaan turns to look through the gap at Berry.
‘It will help numb the pain.’
‘Excuse me,’ he strokes Wedge’s leg, exhales heavily. ‘Mr Veg.’
He opens the glovebox by Wedge’s knees. He pulls out a glass pipe.
‘I like it in a pipe. I have one prepared already. It will cheer us all up eh, Mr Veg? I do not like violence. Ah fosure. It upsets me.’
‘Do you have a light?’
Wedge fidgets through his pockets.
‘Fuck? I can’t find it.’
‘Here,’ Berry says, and he hands the lighter he’d found on Play Fair, the one with the lady in the swimsuit.
Kristiaan takes it, looks at it. He gently turns it upside down to strip the lady in the bowl.
‘Thank you.’
He does it again. Then rolls the flint and lights the pipe.
He sucks hard, the flame from the lighter leans forward into the bowl.
Coughs.
He offers it to Wedge, keeping the smoke in his chest.
Wedge takes hold of it and puts it to his lips.
Kristiaan rolls the flint.
Once.
‘Suck hard!’ he commands, breathing out his own dose.
Twice.
‘Harder!’
Three times.
Wedge sucks the flame down, pulling so hard that smoke exits his anus.
Kristiaan takes it from him and passes it between the two front seats to Berry.
‘Your turn.’
It’s an order.
Wedge is silent, out of sight.
Berry’s lungs gently pull on the barrel.
Once.
‘Not like that Mr Berry. Properly. Suck. Hard!’
Twice.
‘And again, Mr Berry.’
Third time lucky.
‘HARDER!’
It’s a harsh, chemical hit - not at all herbal.
‘Jesus!’ he coughs.
‘Fuckin!
Cough.
‘Christ!’
Berry falls back against the upholstery – but then he just keeps falling, through soft clouds, waiting for the bottom.
For the bounce.
It doesn’t come.
Yet.
The dial that keeps the door to Ted Berry’s mind safely contained is spinning, its secret codes clicking and flashing by like a lock in a safe cracker’s hand.
‘Man, oh man.’
It spills open.
Wedge turns and looks through the gap between the front seats.
They look each other in the eye – waving each other off at the port, sailing off this time to different destinations.
Berry’s anchor trails behind him in the water.
‘Man, oh man.’
His conciousness and unconciousness free now to mix and meld, float and intertwine like smoke rings - to find their own level – never to return to the same spot where they’d been moored all these short years.
Not quite.
He tries to steer as best he can, but the controls are slippery and unfamiliar – up is down, left is right. He looks at the back of Wedge’s head, framed by the glass windscreen.
Familiarity.
‘Ha heh heh,’ he laughs. ‘Massive . . .’
Just as he gets to the end of one thought, he finds he’s forgotten the start.
‘Napper?’
He lets them dissolve into each other – I mean, who the fuck cares, anyway? It doesn’t matter. The tracks slip off unto the horizon in elaborate, coloured shapes. Sometimes side by side but never quite together.
‘Happy boys?’ Kristiaan shouts. ‘Hoo hoo hoo!’
He beeps his horn, the pipe at his lips.
Hoot.
Hoot.
Hoot.
‘I played a little trick on you,’ Kristiaan says. ‘Do you know what this is?’
Silence.
‘Heroin, boys. Heroin! Welcome to Rotterdam. Hoo hoo hoo!’
Hoot.
Hoot.
Hoot.
There’s interference on the line.
‘Heroin?’
Collapsed veins.
White, emaciated corpses in the stairwells of derelict housing blocks.
Berry shuts his eyes.
‘Fuckinhell, heroin,’ he says. ‘So this is it.’
There’s a reason people spend money they don’t have on it.
Kristiaan pulls again on the pipe.
‘Well,’ he continues. ‘Not only heroin. MDMA too, but it doesn’t burn so well. I find it helps the journey. I am like a chef, you could say. Hoo hoo hoo. Uzut, Veg? Like a chef?’
He makes chop, chop signs with his open right hand.
&n
bsp; ‘I should chop you up into little pieces, my little vegetable. Hoo hoo hoo. Do you want some more?’
The pipe passes between the front seats.
‘Mr Berry?’
Berry holds up his hands in protest.
‘Nah, man. Nah.’
‘Ah fosure!’
Kristiaan sucks on the pipe until it burns itself out.
Empty.
‘Ah?’ Kristiaan says, shuffling around at his feet. ‘I nearly forgot. I wanted to show you two something.’
Kristiaan rustles something at Berry between the seats.
It’s a newspaper.
Berry looks at it, it’s turned to an inside page.
Page seven.
There’s a photograph of what could be a burnt whale.
Kristiaan is smiling.
‘Did you kill him?’
‘What?’
The scratches on the page won’t form.
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know who. But someone died on a boat. Look.’
‘Boat?’
‘They died?’
‘Died?’
‘Dead, yes. Boat, yes. MY boat. YES! Now, I like you boys,’ he looks at Berry then Wedge. ‘You two are my friends, yes?’
‘Aye mister,’ Wedge mumbles. ‘We’re mates.’
‘I must ask you a question.’
He looks again at them both.
Then turns and looks between the seats at Berry for what feels like about 15 years.
‘Mr Berry, Ted Berry, Skipper of the Play Fair – do you copy? Do you copy, now? Where is my cannabis?’
‘What?’
‘VORDERT!’ he slams both hands against the steering wheel. ‘You spoke to my mother, my FUCKING mother. Where are MY drugs?’
‘Shit the fuckin bed!’
‘Calm the fuck down!’ Wedge says.
Kristiaan turns to him.
‘My neighbour’s got it.’
‘Wat?’
‘My neighbour.’
‘Your neighbour?’
‘Talbot. Wade Talbot.’
Kristiaan’s face lights up and mouth opens on a dentist’s wank fantasy – three teeth are missing from the left hand side of his mouth, the rest look like they could soon follow.
‘Ah my father’s friend, Mr Talbot!’ he beams. ‘The little fishing fisherman! I knew this, but where?’
‘On his boat,’ Wedge says. ‘Maybes.’
He turns and looks at Berry.
‘Zeer goed.’
He grabs the steering wheel.
‘That is alright then. Yes? Very good. Very very good. Ah fosure. We can still be friends. And we shall find out what happened to Fredrik. Yes yes.’
He turns the key in the ignition.
‘We will have some fun yes?’ Kristiaan says. ‘You are my friends. Yes?’
Electricity hits the stereo, turning the tape in the deck.
A guitar solo.
A screaming, squealing masturbation – like a pterodactyl wanking itself on a rock.
Right behind Berry’s head, the speakers cranked up to max.
‘Oh! Fuck! Me!’
‘Woo hoo hoo!’ Kristian screams.
And the Vauxhall Cavalier jerks away from the kerb and up the street.
Ted Berry feels like a small boy, skimming like a pebble across a flat lake. His mind touching reality occasionally, before bouncing back up again – into an endlessly changing place.
The screaming guitar pumps into either ear, compressing his brain down to the size of a walnut.
‘Woo hoo hoo!’ Kristiaan screams.
He bangs his head back and forth, apparently in time to the music.
‘It is good feeling Mr Berry, hey?’ Kristiaan shouts into the mirror. ‘Do you like it?’
Berry closes his eyes and smiles.
‘Woo hoo!’ Wedge shouts from the front seat.
Kristiaan presses rewind on the stereo.
‘I must hear that bit again!’ he says.
Zip zip.
Trees and concrete flit by the open windows.
Zip zip.
‘Man, oh man,’ Berry says.
Berry feels six years old, on a road trip, his long dead dad smiling at him from the rearview mirror.
Kristiaan winks.
Zip zip.
Berry sticks a hand out of the window, it sores up like a bird. He tips his fingers and the hand swoops down.
‘Ha heh heh.’
‘Do you like my music?’ Kristiaan says.
‘Nah,’ Wedge says. ‘It’s shit.’
‘Aye,’ Berry agrees. ‘Fuckinawful. Total. And. Utter. Shite.’
‘You are needling me, yes? Ah fosure. Hoo hoo hoo.’
‘Nah mate, for real,’ Wedge smiles. ‘It’s shit. Total shit.’
Krsitiaan presses ‘play’, let’s go of the wheel and does a little air guitar solo.
Rocking his bad haircut back and forward.
Wedge bursts.
‘Gah!’
He points at the rock buffoon with bad hair at the wheel.
He’s laughing so hard, his lungs lock high in his chest and he makes no sound at all.
It’s the funniest thing.
Ever.
And Ted Berry agrees.
‘Ha heh heh.’
Kristiaan continues to play air guitar as the car heads down the street.
‘Heh heh heh. Ha heh heh.’
The phrase in the music passes.
He brings down his hand and presses rewind.
‘I don’t go anywhere without my tapes,’ he shouts over the din. ‘I will play that guitar solo again.’
Tears of insane laughter stream down Berry’s face, he rolls to the side.
He can’t breathe. It’s like a bear is sitting on his chest.
The tape whirrs.
Kristiaan looks in the mirror.
‘You two boys are crazier even than me? Hoo hoo hoo. We will have some fun tonight, yes? We are on the rampage. It is a good word, yes - ‘rampage’. It is a great name for a rock band, no? Shall we form a group? I will play lead guitar. Wij zouden een rotsgroep moeten beginnen.’
He does another little burst of air guitar, rocks his head back and forth.
‘The Rampage. Yeaaah!’
‘Fuck! Ha ha ha. Me!’
‘Ha heh heh.’
‘Hoo hoo hoo.’
The tape ejects.
Kristiaan pushes in the tape, it clicks.
But there’s no sound.
He hits it.
‘Stomme vloekmachine!’
Heavy rock.
Loud.
Wedge is saying something.
‘Bez. We . . bloke . . reporter . . ?’
He turns and says it again.
‘That . . bloke . . reporter?’
Berry can’t make out what Wedge is saying, the music is too loud.
Kristiaan presses the rewind button.
‘That is the wrong bit. I must find that solo AGAIN! Hoo hoo hoo!’
‘Isn’t it Bez?’
‘What?’
A white Ford Escort is parked on the bank, a neat man in a light blue shirt is leaning on the roof, his back exposed to the road.
‘That prick reporter. Looker.’
‘Is it?’
Berry turns his head.
Kristiaan presses play on the tape deck – the solo, halfway through.
Wedge sticks his head out of the window.
‘Wanker!’ he shouts. ‘Ha ha ha.’
Kristiaan presses rewind.
‘Uzut?’ Kristiaan asks.
‘Reporter,’ Wedge replies, his head back indoors now. ‘Fuckin prick. It was his fault Bez had a fight with Crosby.’
‘Crosby?’
‘The kid whose nuts y’crushed.’
‘Uzut? Ah, I see?’
Kristiaan takes the next left and pulls up in front of a fish smoking factory.
He reaches for the newspaper.
‘Is this his nam
e?’
Wedge reads.
‘Rick Delaney?’
He leans between the seat gap.
‘Rick Delaney?’ he asks Berry.
‘Man,’ Berry says. ‘I don’t fuckin know, do I? Probably.’
It’s enough.
‘Well,’ Kristiaan says. ‘Let’s give him something to write about.’
He presses play on the tape deck.
The guitar solo, from the beginning this time.
‘Not a-fuckin-gain,’ Berry falls back into the upholstery.