Savage Games

by Peter Boland

  Savage winked at Archie and Dink, who grinned back, clearly enjoying the little mission. Savage selected a nice thick piece of exterior plywood and rested it on the sawhorse. Holding the cardboard in place, he cut around it, then held it up to examine his handiwork. Good enough.

  There was a half-used tube of sealant in the skip. Savage pulled it out and asked, “Mind if I have this?”

  “Listen,” the lad said. “You can have whatever you like.”

  Dink stepped forward, eyeing the guy’s sandwich box and flask. Savage knew he was going ask if he could scoff it down. Savage planted a hand on his chest just in time to stop him.

  He thanked the lad and the three of them scuttled off back to Tivoli Gardens.

  Back in Archie’s room, Savage got Dink to use his powerful grip to squeeze globs of sealant onto one side of the wood.

  “Now your turn, Archie. Just stick the wood in place over the hole, against the window frame.”

  Archie lifted up the plywood, his hands trembling. His whisky consumption had given him the shakes. “I’m a little wobbly,” he said.

  “Can I do it?” asked Dink.

  “Yeah, you do it, Dink,” said Archie. “You’re steadier than me.”

  Dink took the wood and carefully positioned it perfectly square, putting all his weight behind it to secure it in place.

  The effect was instant. The harsh draft ceasing immediately. “That’s amazing,” said Archie. “Can’t feel a thing.”

  “Now if we really want to do a proper job,” said Savage. “We need to run a thin bead of sealant all around the wood. Think you’re up to it, Dink?”

  Dink nodded enthusiastically.

  Savage continued, “So the trick is to keep the pressure on the tube constant and move the nozzle slowly and consistently around the edge, closing off any gaps.”

  Dink held the tube and began feeding out sealant in a long white worm like he was squeezing toothpaste onto a brush. His tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth like a five-year-old concentrating on colouring in. As he guided the tube along the edge of the wood, the thickness of the sealant never wavered, even when he had to take it around the corners. Finally, the two ends met up.

  “Excellent job, Dink,” said Savage.

  “Really, did I do it right?”

  “Better than right,” Savage replied. “That was perfect. You’ve got the knack. Well done.”

  Savage gave him a high five.

  “Can we fix something else?” asked Dink, all smiley. “This is great fun.”

  “Sure, why not? Gives you a sense of satisfaction and achievement, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it feels good,” said Dink. “And I haven’t thought about food once.”

  “Good for you, Dink.” Savage was pleased for him, could feel the sense of pride it was giving him. A little bit of self-esteem from a job well done always worked wonders.

  Savage felt a presence behind him, and turned just in time to see Truck barging into the room. He shouldered his way past the three of them, reached up and ripped the wood off the frame, then threw it on the floor.

  Vlad stood in the doorway. “Who the hell told you losers you could damage Simon Wellington’s property?”

  The positive vibe of the room fled and turned deeply negative, and another presence made itself felt. “Oh no,” said Jeff Perkins inside Savage’s head. “It’s Tweedledum and Tweedledickhead.”

  “I said, which idiot said you could do that?” asked Vlad.

  “Er, I did,” said Savage, trying to feign some humility and preserve his grey-man act. A hard task with Jeff barking in his ear.

  “He just called you an idiot. You’re not going to stand for that are you? Grab one of Archie’s booze bottles. Knock him out and that show-off from Gladiators. I mean, how can you let a guy who used to wear Lycra hot pants on TV ruin your handiwork? Look, he’s bashed up your DIY and you know how much you love DIY.”

  Savage swallowed hard and tried to block out Jeff’s rant. “We were just trying to fix the draft. Archie’s room is really cold and…”

  “Shut up, fool,” said Truck, up close to Savage so their noses were nearly touching.

  “He called you a fool. A fool. You’re the smartest guy in the room. Look, you’re close enough for a headbutt. Nice big fat one. Flatten his nose even more. Looks like a few people have done it before you, so do it extra hard, because his nerve endings might be dead.”

  The voice was right. Normally Savage would’ve stared right back at the guy before hitting him, but he had to play the grey man or all this would be for nothing.

  Savage gazed at the floor. “Sorry.”

  “No. No. No. Savage. No. Put away the grey man. Come on, you know you want to. Put away the grey man. Put away the grey man…” Jeff chanted.

  Savage stole a quick sideways glance at Dink, who looked terrified. Archie seemed numb and unreadable, mesmerised like a rabbit in the headlights.

  “You’ll have to pay to get this fixed properly,” said Vlad.

  Jeff Perkins dropped an f-bomb.

  “It was already broken,” said Savage.

  “Tell them you’ll break them.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Truck. “I think five hundred quid will cover it.”

  “Five hundred quid!”

  “I haven’t got five hundred quid,” Savage said quietly, trying to keep a grip on reality. Savage had the money but had to keep up the pantomime of being poor.

  “Then you’ve got a problem,” said Truck.

  Through all the white noise of Jeff’s remarks, Savage thought of an opportunity. “I could work for it,” he said. If he could get in with them, he could get closer to what was happening in Wellington’s sordid little world. Maybe find out about the ‘weird stuff’ he made people do.

  “What can a loser like you do?” asked Vlad.

  “DIY, fix things up.”

  “That’s right,” said Dink, excitedly, as if he’d had too much sugar. “He can fix things, he did this magic trick with a nail and…”

  “Hey, retarded hungry caterpillar,” said Truck. “Shut up.”

  “Now that, I do agree with,” Jeff said cruelly.

  “Nope, I think you pay. You pay fifty a week,” Truck added.

  “I only get seventy a week in benefit,” Savage replied.

  “Not our problem. Now go get us fifty quid.”

  Shoulders slumped and head down, Savage shuffled out of Archie’s room, back to his own. He returned and held out five ten-pound notes to Vlad.

  “Don’t give it to him, Savage. Are you insane? Yes, actually, you are insane, you’ve got me talking to you inside your head, but you know what I mean.”

  Vlad snatched the notes from Savage’s hand and stuffed them in his pocket.

  “That hole stays unfixed, understand.” Truck picked up the thick square of plywood from the floor and snapped it over his meaty right thigh. He held up the two pieces and let them fall to the floor as if he were doing a mic drop. “Once when I was sparring on Gladiators, I snapped a bow staff in half, you should have seen the faces on all the other Gladiators. Shit scared of me they were. I think that’s why I didn’t get so much air time as the rest. I was too powerful.”

  Here we go again, thought Savage. Same ditchwater-dull story about Gladiators, and about how he was too powerful for the show. Savage tuned out while Truck wittered on about his fifteen minutes of fame.

  “Pleasure doing business with you, Savage,” said Vlad, cutting off an anecdote about Truck punching a runner on the show because he brought him the wrong flavour protein shake.

  Vlad left the room. Truck stayed on to finish his boring, pointless story. “… So I thumped this guy and said next time, make sure it’s strawberry.” Then he left, not bothering to close the door.

  Chapter 23

 
It took Savage and Archie a while to stop Dink from chewing the back of his hand. The two thugs had not only destroyed the window repair, they’d broken Dink’s spirit. After helping with the small job, Savage had seen a twinkle in Dink’s eye, a spark of energy and purpose. Accomplishment was far better at nourishing the soul than any therapy, drugs or junk food. That was all gone now, and the low-self-esteem Dink was back again. At least Jeff Perkins had got bored and left.

  They’d managed to block up the window, by stuffing it with some of Dave’s old clothes he’d left behind, holding it in place with tape. It wasn’t as good as a solid piece of plywood and sealant but it was far better than the cardboard. At least his room felt marginally warmer and liveable.

  “Are we still having food?” said Dink desperately.

  “Course we are,” said Savage, trying to keep spirits up.

  “You’ve got no cash left,” said Archie. “Why don’t I boil up some water and we can all have a Pot Noodle.”

  “Yes, Pot Noodle,” said Dink, clapping his hands.

  “No, we’ll have something freshly cooked. It’ll be better for both of you. Better for that chesty cough of yours, Archie. And Dink, this food you can have as much as you want.”

  Dink became a volcano of excitement. “Really? I can eat as much as I want?”

  “Yep, I made a promise yesterday before the meeting. You can have as much as you like.”

  Dink bounced up and down on the spot making the floor shake. “Tell me what this food is. I can’t wait.”

  “Soup,” said Savage.

  Dink stopped bouncing. Archie looked crestfallen. Both their shoulders slumped, as if all the air had been let out of them.

  “Soup?” asked Dink.

  “Vegetable soup,” Savage said. “And yes, you can eat as much of it as you want. Nothing healthier than fresh vegetable soup.”

  “Er, I think I’ll pass,” said Archie, pulling a Pot Noodle from off the shelf.

  “Me too,” Dink added.

  “Remember that warm fuzzy feeling you got from fixing the window?” asked Savage.

  Dink nodded.

  “You get that from making and eating your own food. Not adding boiling water to something made in a factory with dry old bits of I-don’t-know-what.”

  Neither of them said anything. Dink looked longingly at the Pot Noodles on Archie’s shelf.

  “Tell you what,” said Savage. “If you don’t like it, you can have Pot Noodle instead.”

  “Okay,” said Dink, some of the spark returning to his eyes. “I’ll do it.”

  “What about you, Archie?”

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  “Come on, Archie,” said Savage. “You need good food to clear up that cough of yours.”

  “Don’t worry,” Archie said. “I eat out a lot at a local restaurant.”

  “Really?” asked Dink. “What’s it called?”

  “McDonald’s.” Archie’s reply turned into an uncontrollable cough.

  “I want to go to McDonald’s,” said Dink.

  “Have you got any money?” asked Savage. Dink shook his head. “Then soup it is.”

  Savage and Dink walked to the convenience store. Dink didn’t stop asking questions about the soup and how they were going to make it. He’d seemed to have blanked out the incident with Truck and Vlad.

  Wandering around the aisles of the cramped and shabby little store, Savage grabbed a packet of stock cubes and filled his basket with veg, onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic, peas and anything they had that was fresh, which wasn’t much. Demand wasn’t high for fresh produce in Thornhill. It was more of a multi-packs-of-salty-snacks-and-cheap-beer type of place.

  As they queued up to pay they noticed Rosie was having an argument with the cashier.

  “I want a refund,” she said holding up a reusable grocery bag, which had a hole in the bottom that she kept poking her finger through. “This is called a bag for life.”

  “So?” said the cashier.

  “Well, it hasn’t lasted for life has it. Got a hole in it, see?”

  “Bag for life doesn’t mean it lasts forever,” the cashier replied, unconcerned. Arguing with customers was above his pay grade.

  “That’s false advertising.”

  The bag was made of canvas and clearly had “Bag for Life” printed on the side and the logo of the convenience store, together with trees and butterflies to emphasise its environmental credentials. The thing was dirty and had scuff marks all over it. Savage wondered whether Rosie had found it in the road.

  “I’m sorry,” said the cashier. “That bag looks well used.”

  Rosie’s anger flared. “Course it’s used,” she replied. “What else am I supposed to do with it?”

  “She’s got a point,” said Savage. Rosie swung round and glared at Savage, as if warning him to stay out of this. Maybe she wanted to fight her own battles. “A bag for life is not a bag for life if it only lasts a fortnight.”

  “Then it would be called a bag for a fortnight,” Dink added.

  “That’s right,” Savage agreed. “Maybe you could have a whole range depending on how long each one lasted. Bag for a month, bag for a year…”

  “Bag for a short while,” said Dink.

  Savage laughed. “Now that would be more accurate. Bag for a short while. If you’re going to call it a Bag for Life then you’re really asking for trouble.”

  The cashier shrugged. “I’ll give you a replacement bag.”

  “No, please,” said Rosie. All the fight had gone out of her, replaced by desperation. “I need a refund. Please.”

  The cashier looked at Savage and Dink then back to Rosie. The hassle wasn’t worth it. He opened the till and placed a pound coin on the counter. Rosie snatched it up. “Be right back.” She disappeared momentarily and returned with a loaf of cheap white bread and a pint of milk. Adding the pound to a fistful of small coins, she opened her hand and spilt them over the counter. Life must be dire if she was resorting to scavenging for things to refund in a bid to feed herself and her daughter Grace.

  The cashier scanned the items then counted up all the loose change. “Eleven pence short,” he said bluntly.

  “Are you sure?” said Rosie. “Count it again.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Savage, stepping forward. “I got it.” He slapped eleven pence on the counter.

  Rosie turned to fix Savage with a pair of untrusting eyes. “I’m not a charity case,” she said. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”

  “I didn’t say you were a charity case,” Savage replied. “And I don’t feel sorry for you. I just think if our roles were reversed, you’d do the same for me.”

  Rosie didn’t reply. She snatched up her groceries and left.

  People were desperate here. Just like the estate in London where Savage grew up. They’re not born this way, they’re made, thought Savage. Products of their environment. If they’re always watching their back, always trying and failing to make ends meet, it hardens them. No one chooses to be this way. Life’s lottery shapes them.

  Back at Tivoli Gardens, Dink and Savage took their bulging bag of groceries down into the kitchen in the basement.

  “You’re kidding me,” said Savage, as he got his first look at the kitchen.

  It looked worse than a war zone. Filthy plates and unwashed pans plastered in mouldy food covered every available surface, including the floor. Savage couldn’t even see the sink or the cooker, they were under a pile of broken and dirty crockery. Bin bags overflowed with ancient rubbish, stinking out the place. It was a health hazard and smelt disgusting. Given a few more years, some of the organic matter would have evolved and walked out of there on its own. In one corner a rotting door leading to the rear of the house was so damp its wood was no better than cardboard.

  “Jeez, we should have bought washing-up liqui
d and bleach,” said Savage.

  “I’ve got hand sanitizer in my room,” said Dink.

  “That’ll have to do.”

  With the hand sanitizer they managed to disinfect a small rectangle of the counter on which to work. Savage managed to scrub clean a massive double-handled bucket-sized pan, together with some bowls and utensils. He used the penknife on his keychain to cut up the vegetables, while Dink peeled them. Dink had never done it before, but like his DIY skills, he had great dexterity with his hands.

  “We’ll use everything,” said Savage. “Cook a load of it up, then we can have soup whenever we want.”

  Dink grinned.

  Savage showed him how to fry the veg in the saucepan, then add the water, bring it to the boil, then let it simmer for ten minutes.

  Dink enjoyed sprinkling in the stock cube. “And that’s all we have to do?” he asked.

  “Yep,” said Savage. “That’s it. Home-cooked soup, easiest dish to make and totally good for you.”

  When it had cooked and cooled, they had enough soup to feed a small school. Savage gave Dink a spoonful to try. He blew on it a few times then took a sip. His face went blank then cracked into a huge blissful smile. “Oh, that’s good,” he said, taking another mouthful, not waiting for it to cool. “And I can eat as much of this as I like?”

  “Yeah,” said Savage. “Well, within reason. There’s no rubbish in that, so fill your boots. But pace yourself, I know it looks like a lot but that’s got to last us.” He poured some into a separate bowl—a huge one, fruit-bowl sized—and gave it to Dink, who began spooning it in his mouth like he was in an eating competition. Then Savage took a smaller bowl and filled it. “I’m going to take some up to Archie, see if I can tempt him off those instant noodles.”

  Dink nodded, his mouth still full.

  When Savage returned, Dink stood sheepishly, leaning against the counter, like he was an errant child waiting outside the headmaster’s office. He looked away and started biting his knuckles.

  “Dink, what’s wrong?” Savage asked as gently as he could.

  Dink wouldn’t say anything. Savage noticed the vast pan of soup had gone. All of it. At first he thought Dink might have wolfed the whole lot down. Even he couldn’t have got through the gallons of soup they’d made in the brief amount of time Savage had been upstairs. Besides, the pan was missing.