The Peacock Manifesto (Peacock Tales Book 1)

by Stuart David

  ‘It’s got a real fucking thump,’ he said. ‘It’s really going to do something. I’m getting fucking excited now, Peacock. We’ll be there tomorrow. We should phone the guy in the morning and let him know we’re close. Make sure he’ll be around.’

  ‘I’ll give him a shout,’ I said. ‘We’ve come a long fucking way.’

  ‘A long way, Peacock. A lot of stories. But this is just the beginning.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, wee man,’ I said.

  We stopped some time after midnight. Luckily, the room me and Bev ended up in had two beds in it. Otherwise there would have been a lot of kicking and scratching going on.

  I went and sat on her bed before I put the light out, and asked her how she was doing. She hadn’t said a single word since we’d got into the room.

  ‘I shouldn’t have done that to your CD,’ I told her. ‘You just have to learn not to wind me up so much.’

  She fluffed up her pillows and put her head down on them.

  ‘You’re a fucking cunt, Peacock,’ she said.

  Chapter 29

  First thing in the morning I phoned the Washington guy. It took fucking ages to get through all his different secretaries and minions, but I took that as a good sign. It meant he really had something going on there. It meant it was a proper company, and not just some one-man show.

  Finally I got connected to his own phone.

  ‘John Williams?’ he said. I liked the way he said it. As if he wanted you to think he thought he was just a guy—like any other—while at the same time you could tell he knew you’d be thinking,

  ‘Fuck me; it’s him.’

  ‘Alright, pal?’ I said. It didn’t make any difference to me; I’d never heard of him before our guy gave us his name. ‘How are you doing?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m cool,’ he said. ‘Who’s speaking?’

  ‘This is Peacock, son. Peacock Johnson.’

  ‘Peacock!’ he said. ‘How are you?’

  The chump was fucking delighted.

  ‘Aye. I’m… cool too, John. We’re almost there, pal. We should be in Washington this afternoon.’

  ‘Awesome. That’s great to hear, Peacock. I’m excited to meet you guys. And I can’t wait to hear this song. From what I’ve been told it sounds like this could really go.’

  ‘It will, John,’ I told him. ‘It’s a belter, son.’

  ‘How has the trip been, Peacock? You’ve made good time.’

  ‘Aye, the wee man can drive. We stopped in Memphis yesterday; went to Graceland.’

  ‘Awesome. I’m jealous, Peacock. You know, I’ve never been. I’ll get there one day.’

  ‘You should, John. It’s fucking mental. Listen, pal,’ I said, ‘I’d better go just now, but we’ll see you in a few hours.’

  ‘I’ll be looking forward to it, Peacock. Have you got directions?’

  ‘We’ve got the address,’ I told him.

  ‘Cool. Any problems, give me a call. Otherwise I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘Cheers, pal. Cheers,’ I said, and hung up. Then I went to tell Bob it looked good.

  I didn’t realize till I came off the phone that he’d understood everything I said. No—’What?’ No—’I’m sorry?’ I took that as another good sign. It made a fucking difference anyway.

  ‘How did it go?’ Bob asked.

  ‘Magic,’ I told him. ‘He’s fucking wetting himself, son. He’s convinced it’ll be a hit already.’

  ‘Of course he is,’ Bob said. ‘And wait till he fucking hears it. He’ll be jumping up and down.’

  ‘Are we ready to go?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m just cleaning this out,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long.’

  He was washing the fucking teapot, with the cleaning stuff Bev had bought at the airport.

  ‘I’ll go and see how Her Majesty’s doing,’ I told him. ‘We’ll see you outside.’

  It could have gone either way that morning, with Bev. She was grumpy, but she was talking a bit again, and it could have gone either way. But luck wasn’t on my side.

  As we drove away the stereo did its trick, and started thumping our own tune. I pulled it out and threw it into the bag with all the master tapes from the studio.

  ‘It’s a different story when it’s your song,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t smash that up.’

  ‘Give it a rest, Bev,’ I told her.

  But the bad luck continued, and that was only a taster for what happened next.

  We’d stopped for lunch at a roadside place, and we were drinking coffee, waiting for the food to arrive.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’m starting to miss,’ she said, ‘I’m starting to miss a really good cup of tea. I’m getting tired of all this coffee. You just can’t get a good cup of tea here.’

  ‘You should make one yourself,’ I told her. ‘The wee man cleaned out that pot this morning, didn’t you, son?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I’m still not convinced it’s safe, though,’ he said. ‘It was foul. They must have been disgusting fuckers in that house. How could anyone live in there?’

  I shot him a look, but it was too late.

  ‘In where?’ Bev asked him. ‘I thought you said you bought it somewhere.’

  ‘The…’ Bob said, but it was no good. He’d dropped us right fucking in it, and she wouldn’t let it go till we’d told her the whole fucking story. There was no way round it, and the only bit we left out was the bit about the worms. We just told her we’d had to get out of there cause we’d been disturbed.

  ‘You bloody idiot, Peacock,’ she shouted. ‘I don’t believe you. What the hell were you playing at?’

  ‘Hang on a minute, Bev,’ I told her. ‘I didn’t even get inside the fucking house.’

  ‘Only because someone came along. If… Oh, Christ. Wait… When we got stopped by the police, you thought that’s what it was about, didn’t you?’

  We kept quiet.

  ‘You bloody stupid arsehole, Peacock. We could all have gone to jail.’

  ‘But they stopped us for the lease, Bev.’

  ‘I could have gone to jail. You’re an absolute moron, Peacock. What were you doing breaking into a house anyway, when you’ve got a record company behind you? It’s not as if you needed the money. Is that what you do for fun now?’

  She wouldn’t let go of that either, so we had to fill her in on all the rest of it. She stared unbelieving all the way through it and then stormed off to the ‘rest-room’.

  ‘You fucking monkey,’ I hissed at Bob, when she was gone.

  ‘I’m sorry, Peacock,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I goofed up.’

  So it could have gone either way with her that morning, but that’s the way it went. And she didn’t stay quiet after that either, like she had the day before. She came right out at me. Fucking constant. The journey was a fucking nightmare from there on in.

  She started shouting as soon as we got back into the car, and she didn’t fucking stop.

  ‘It’s all been lies from start to finish,’ she screamed. ‘This whole trip. Even before I got here it was lies. I don’t know what’s going on anymore, Peacock.’

  ‘We’ve told you what’s going on, Bev,’ I said. ‘We told you. We just have to get these master tapes to D.C. and then everything’ll be fine.’

  ‘Does Washington have an airport, Bob?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Bob said. ‘International Airport.’

  ‘Take me straight there,’ she told him. ‘Before you go to this record company. If there even is a record company. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see the place and I don’t want to know anything about it. Just take me straight to the airport.’

  ‘Don’t be fucking daft, Bev,’ I told her. ‘Just calm down.’

  As it turned out, though, we didn’t go straight anywhere. We got fucking lost trying to find the address, and I couldn’t concentrate on the map with Bev fucking rattling on the whole time—riling me up. I kept having to stop reading it to snap back at her, and then
we’d take another wrong turning and I’d have to try and work out where the fuck we were again. It wasn’t fucking easy.

  ‘I’m not kidding, Bob,’ she started shouting. ‘Stop following this arsehole’s directions, and take me to the bastarding airport.’

  ‘I’ll take you, Bev,’ he said. ‘But we have to find this place first; they’ll be closing up soon.’

  We went round another corner and somehow we were back at the river we’d crossed on the way in. Back there for the third fucking time.

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ Bev shouted. ‘Give me the bloody map, Peacock.’

  She tried to grab it, but I held on. If she’d been reading the map we’d have ended up in the fucking river.

  ‘Well, stop and phone the guy,’ she said. ‘This is totally insane.’

  ‘You’re fucking insane,’ I told her. ‘If you’d just give me a bit of peace it’d be no fucking bother. Just shut your fucking hole for five minutes and we’ll be there.’

  ‘Stop the car, Bob,’ she shouted then. ‘Stop the car, I’m getting out. I can’t take any more of this.’

  ‘We’ll find it, Bev,’ he told her. ‘It’s got to be close.’

  But she’d gone totally fucking mental. She put her hands over his eyes from the back seat and started screaming.

  ‘Stop,’ she shouted. ‘Stop the car, you wee shite.’

  He tried to pull her hands off, then I tried, but she had some fucking grip on him.

  ‘Alright,’ Bob said. ‘I’m stopping. You’ll fucking kill us all. Take your hands of me so I can see where the fuck I’m going.’

  She let go and he pulled in.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, and he turned around in his seat, but she already had the door open and she was outside.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said to me.

  ‘Now you see what I’m up against,’ I told him. ‘Eh? Now do you see it? She’s fucking crazy.’

  She was out there banging on my window, making a mad fucking gesture at me to roll it down.

  I opened the door and got out.

  ‘What?’ I asked her.

  ‘Give me the money,’ she said.

  ‘What money?’

  ‘The money for a taxi to the airport and a flight home.’

  ‘Fucking sober up,’ I told her.

  ‘I’m serious, Peacock,’ she said. ‘Give me the money, now.’

  I walked a bit further away from the car and she followed me.

  ‘Take some deep breaths, Bev,’ I told her.

  ‘What? What the hell are you talking about, Peacock?’

  ‘You need to calm down, hen,’ I said. ‘You’ve got yourself all worked-up about nothing.’

  ‘Nothing? What the hell do you mean? Nothing? You’re a bloody corker, Peacock. Just give me the bloody money.’

  ‘Calm down,’ I told her again. ‘You’ve got yourself so worked-up you’re not even thinking straight.’

  ‘Peacock, I’m calm. I’m thinking straight. I’ll tell you how straight I’m thinking. Here’s an example. If you don’t give me that money, right this minute, I’m going to go to the police myself, and I’m going to tell them about your wee adventure in L.A.’

  ‘And what will they charge us with, Bev? Stealing a fucking teapot?’

  ‘You know what they’ll charge you with, Peacock. And it won’t be the first time, either. So give me the money.’

  ‘I haven’t got it,’ I told her.

  ‘Don’t try that one, pal. Just give me it.’

  ‘Bev,’ I said, ‘I haven’t got it. I’m so fucking sick of you I’d give you enough for a first-class ticket if I had it, just to be fucking shot of you. But I haven’t got it. We only had enough to get us here, and now we have to take the master tapes to the guy before we can get any more.’

  She started fucking screaming again.

  ‘What? You brought me out here without having any way of getting me home? Are you mental, Peacock? What are you trying to do to me?’

  She ran back to the car and threw the passenger door open, and I thought she was going to strangle Bob or something. So did he, judging by the look on his face. But in a second she was back out again, slamming the door shut.

  ‘And this is it?’ she shouted at me. She was holding up the bag with all the master tapes in it.

  ‘Put that down, Bev,’ I told her.

  ‘This is it? This is my only chance of ever getting home? You’ve hung my chances on this?’

  ‘Relax, hen,’ I said. ‘There’s no problem. We’ll have all the fucking money we need when we get those tapes to the guy.’

  ‘Peacock,’ she said, ‘it’s a lot of shite. This song’ll never go anywhere. You won’t make a penny from this.’

  ‘We will,’ I told her. ‘Don’t worry about it. The song’ll make a fucking mint.’

  ‘Will it hell as like,’ she said. ‘I can absolutely guarantee it.’

  And in an instant she ran across the road.

  I couldn’t work out what was happening at first. Even when she got to the other side of the road I didn’t know. But Bob was way ahead of me. His door flew open, and he started shouting. He dived across the road in a blur, but he wasn’t anywhere near fast enough. The bag was up in the air before he even reached the pavement. And it was only as I watched it crashing down into the river that I caught on.

  And the thing sank like a fucking stone.

  ‘No!‘ Bob shouted, and he kept running. I thought he was going to fucking kill her. I thought he was going to push her in. But he ran straight past her and jumped in himself.

  I ran across the road then too. He hadn’t landed anywhere fucking near where the bag had gone in, but he kept diving under and resurfacing; struggling for breath and then diving back down again.

  ‘Forget it, Bob,’ I shouted at him. ‘Get out of there. You’ll never fucking find it. They’re all fucking ruined anyway.’

  He gave me a wee wave, and then dived back under again.

  But this time he was gone for a long time. Too long a time.

  Chapter 30

  ‘You’ve fucking killed him,’ I shouted at Bev. ‘You’ve fucking killed the wee man.’

  ‘Get in there,’ she shouted back at me. ‘Get in there and find him, Peacock.’

  ‘Me? You know I can’t swim, Bev.’

  ‘Well what then? What the hell are we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t fucking know. What the fuck were you playing at, Bev?’

  ‘I was trying to make you see sense, Peacock.’

  ‘Sense? What the fuck are you talking about? Where’s the sense? You want to go home and you throw our only way home in the fucking river?’

  ‘Oh God, Peacock,’ she said. ‘Do something.’

  ‘Do what? What the fuck can I do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Do something.’

  But I didn’t have to. The wee man came spluttering back up to the surface downstream, and we ran down towards him.

  ‘Bob,’ I shouted. ‘Get the fuck out of there. Get out.’

  He started swimming towards the edge and we went down the embankment. I stretched out an arm and grabbed him.

  ‘You’re a fucking nutcase,’ I told him, and he sat down spluttering on the edge of the water. He was all covered in fucking slime and stuff.

  ‘I couldn’t find it, Peacock,’ he said.

  ‘Of course you couldn’t find it,’ I told him. ‘You were nowhere fucking near it, son. We thought you’d fucking drowned.’

  Bev knelt down and put her arms round him.

  ‘We did,’ she said, but he wouldn’t look at her. He tried to shrug her away, then he jumped.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve knocked my fucking Elvis necklace off,’ he said.

  It had dropped into the river and he got up onto his knees and started feeling about in the water.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Bev said to him.

  ‘You’re sorry about that?’ I shouted at her. ‘What the fuck are you on
, Bev? What about the fucking master tapes? It’s only a fucking necklace.’

  ‘I’ve got to get it back, though,’ Bob said. He was still shivering and shaking from having been in the river. ‘It’s my talisman,’ he said. ‘It’d be a bad omen to lose it.’

  ‘Bob,’ I said, ‘what the fuck are you talking about? The bad thing’s already happened. All the bad luck’s arrived. We’re already fucked, son.’

  But he wasn’t listening. A bit further down the river two weans were kneeling on the riverbank, and they were sharing a diving mask, taking shots each of wearing it and looking into the water. Bob had clocked that, and he ran down there.

  ‘Give me that,’ he shouted at them, and they looked up, fucking terrified—as the wee man stood there soaked and shivering and covered in fucking slime.

  ‘Hurry it up,’ he said. ‘Come on, you’ll get it back. I need it to find something.’

  They both stared at him, and the one who was wearing the mask shook his head.

  ‘Give me it,’ Bob said, and he grabbed at the front of the mask. He started pulling it away from the wean’s face, but the rubber strap was keeping it on, just stretching further and further. The wean grabbed the front of the mask too and tried to pull it back the way, but Bob kept flicking his knuckles until finally the mask came off.

  ‘Aah, Fuck…’ Bob yelped, as the rubber strap slapped against his hands. But he pulled the mask on and came back up to where the necklace had gone in, with the weans running after him, punching at his legs.

  He bent down and looked in, pushing the water around with his hands. And soon he was right in there again—up to his waist—wading about with his face pressed against the surface.

  ‘Bob,’ I shouted to him, ‘give it up, son. You’ll never fucking find it.’

  But he did. Back in close to the edge again. And he came flying up out of the water with the chain dangling from his fingers and he punched his other fist into the air. Bev started fucking clapping. I couldn’t fucking believe it.

  The wean who’d been wearing the mask ran up to him then and grabbed it back, and the two of them ran away.

  ‘Is it alright?’ Bev asked him, as he fiddled about with the necklace.

  ‘The chain’s bust,’ he told her. ‘But I can fix it. Come on, let’s go.’