‘You look sweet, I mean it. You could light up this room like you’re a thousand-watt bulb. Just let me supply the candle-power.’
‘I don’ think so, Michael,’ Estela said. ‘You far too old for me.’
His eyes, that had shone like pools of limpid Bovril, narrowed. His smile began to chew at itself. Estela enjoyed the pause. Beneath the surface, Michael thrashed about for a clue. Estela admired the outward calm. He could not place her.
‘Do I know you? Because if I’d had the pleasure, I would have bet on me remembering,’ Michael said, finally.
‘Estela Santos.’
Michael flexed effortlessly, and stood upright to meet her outstretched hand. His grip was dry.
‘I wish I knew who you were, sister.’
‘You know me, Michael,’ Estela lisped sweetly before dropping her voice to a nasal drone. ‘I don’t believe you won’t let on to me, you twat.’
It took a second to register: ‘Paul! What’ve they fucking done to you?’
Now they were sitting in the other bar, drinking together in the near-empty calm of the spacious lounge area, they had a chance to catch up. Estela had said she was working for some businessmen, over in the States. Michael nodded, Yeah? He was doing this and that: you know, keeping up appearances. There was still one thing bothering him, Estela could tell.
‘Are you going to lose that voice?’ he had to ask.
‘Does it upset you?’
‘It doesn’t do anything for me, that’s for sure.’
‘It will grow on you,’ said Estela in melodic Anglo-Latin. She loved the way a burst of her Manchester accent had shocked Michael out of his cool, she could swear she saw smoke blowing out of his ears.
‘I hear all the old boys are in prison,’ she said.
Michael had reasserted his kharmic deportment. Estela always admired his balance. His voice purred with the mellifluence of a power-tool, turned-on but not put to work – only stirring the air.
‘That’s right, the Western Union is out of business. The brothers got heavy-duty sentences. By the time they’re out we’ll all be too old for that kind of shit. I’m sweet. I tell you, I walk through the estate, and all these kids come up saying I’m the OG – the godfather. But I’m through with anything but dealing a little draw. I’m taking it easy. I’ll be playing dominoes and drinking rum before long.’
‘You were sent down, too. It’s what I heard,’ Estela said. Michael let his arms hang by his side: Yeah. Shrugging; it was a stupid business.
‘I still can’t fucking believe that. I got sent down for being a football hooligan. And that was in, like, 1988.’
‘You don’ think you were too mature for that kind of thing?’
‘Too right. I hadn’t been on that tip for years. At the time, there was all kind of things in the papers about cracking down on the Waving Tide Of Hooliganism, if you believe the papers. The same time, the clubs are pledging to get heavy with the Small Violent Minority and the government are threatening a whole load of new shit. I didn’t pay attention to the hype, it’s not like I was going to get into anything. I was going to watch a match, that was it.
‘City were playing Everton. Even before kick-off, there’s chanting from the other side about the niggers on the pitch and the niggers on the terraces. But when it’s at a match, you don’t notice it any more. It just goes on all the time, you drown them out by singing louder.
‘What I didn’t realise, because I wasn’t even looking for it, was the coppers keeping an eye on me. Maybe they thought that if City were playing stone-cold racists like half the people following Everton, then it’s going to be a brother who starts any trouble.’
Michael paused. Estela sensed a pulse of anger, beginning to break beneath Michael’s composed front.
‘After we left the ground, the police keep us separate from the Everton crowd. We can see all these kids from Everton flicking V’s and shouting Nigger. We just face them down. Then someone breaks through the line of police – not even a black lad. There’s a surge forward, we clout a few kids as we’re pushed past them. That’s it. The next day, I see myself on the front page of the Manchester Evening News – Hard Core Hooligan. I’ve been filmed by a video camera in the ground, just chanting on the terraces. They got me at the right moment, I look like an animal ready to tear some cunt apart – but I know I was only singing. The police swear that I was the one who orchestrated the trouble after the match.
‘The police give evidence that I’ve been behind most of the violence at Maine Road for the past fifteen years. They say I’m known on the Kippax as the Black Napoleon. All other kinds of shit, you know. That it was time to make an example of people like me. In the end, I couldn’t believe they only gave me three years. I thought they were going to roast my nuts and hang them over the ground.’
‘That’s too bad.’
‘Too right.’
‘I hated prison,’ Estela admitted. ‘That’s why you had to get me out.’
A nod, Yeah, he’d helped her out. ‘But with me, I couldn’t believe I stayed out for so long so I just rolled over and accepted it. If you’re a face, you know, you think that you’ll get banged up eventually. But serving two years …’ Michael shrugged again, in a way that Estela read as: two wasted years.
‘And even then I could say I was lucky because I spent some of it in Strangeways. At least I was in Manchester, living in the same city as my family. But after the Strangeways riot, the Home Office ended up transferring me to Scotland.’
Estela picked up on Michael’s mention of his family. ‘You’ve got a couple of boys haven’t you?’
‘No. Now I got four sons, two daughters – from three different women. I’m married to one of them. I don’t know.’ Michael shrugged again. This time Estela couldn’t read it.
‘They’re all local. I could open my wallet, I’d show you photographs – of the kids as babies, school pictures, and they’re all beautiful. But now my sons are gangstas. Like I said, I’m sweet. But if they don’t end up doing serious time, then they’ll end up dead, shot on the street by another boy with a gun and a mountain bike.’
Estela could read the shrug now.
She said, ‘I was hoping you liked guns, because I really need one. But if you can’t help with that, I’d appreciate a place to stay. I have a feeling that the police are squatting outside my place.’
Michael’s mouth seemed a little tight: you’re bringing trouble down on my head? But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he stood and walked to the bar which stood in the centre of the pub.
The two halves of the Croner were closed to each other. Only the bar opened on to both the pool room and the lounge. When Michael reached the wooden counter, he leant over and beckoned to someone out of sight in the back half of the pub. He held up a finger for Estela: just one second.
After a moment, a younger man joined Michael at the bar. Michael took something – it could only be the stick of resin – from his pocket and handed it over. They shook briefly, sliding their palms across each other’s hands until only their fingertips touched: yeah, see you. Michael returned to Estela.
‘Clive can take care of business. We’ll step over to my place. I should tell you to fuck off, but I always feel responsible for anyone I’ve broke out of prison. I’ll give you a smoke, some decent shit I’ve got. We can talk.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘How long have they been here?’
‘About fifteen minutes.’
Junk peered around Billy the Bouncer and looked down the length of the WARP. The cops were stood in two groups, one by the bar and one further towards the back of the long room. There were five in all, every one in plain clothes. They might as well have walked in with sandwich boards over their shoulders warning you that anything you might say would be taken down and used as evidence.
‘What do they want?’
Billy didn’t know.
Once Junk stepped out of the shadow of Billy’s big shoulders he found out. They wa
nted a word with him. Before they saw him, they were stood making theatrically inconsequential small talk. When Junk walked into the room they stopped and looked straight at him. Junk thought, oh shit. He darted to the top end of the bar and stooped under the trap. The cops weren’t sure what to do — they had the exits covered and couldn’t decide whether to follow Junk under the counter. Two of them hurried down to the far end of the bar, keeping pace with Junk as he trotted along on the other side of the counter.
‘John Quay,’ they shouted, over the heads of the people waiting to be served.
Junk nodded at them in the gaps between the bartenders and lunchtime drinkers: ‘Sorry, I’m in a bit of a hurry.’
‘Mr Quay, can we have a word with you?’
‘Not today, lads,’ said Junk.
At the top of the bar, a policeman and woman dropped under the counter and gave chase. After disentangling themselves from the boy at the cappuccino machine, they fought their way between the bartenders and tried to catch Junk.
Junk had already disappeared through a side door. He started to climb the stairs to the rooms above. If he found Bernard and Theresa quickly, the police would catch him there. At least the cops would see Theresa with Bernard. If anything should happen to her, Bernard would head the list of possible suspects. Junk hoped that it would be enough to keep her safe. Burgess could not want more police interest in his affairs. He surely would not harm Theresa, not once Junk had brought a wagonload of policemen to stand witness. He pounded along the upstairs landing and skidded to a halt as he heard Bernard’s voice.
‘I had a few girls named Theresa one time, they were all right.’
Theresa was sat on a chair by the window, Bernard was leaning back against a wall – looking her over. He turned to greet Junk as the door burst open.
‘All right, John Quay. You look a bit flushed.’
‘I’ve been running. Burgess hasn’t arrived yet, then?’
‘No,’ said Bernard. ‘Have you come to apologise for being so uncooperative when I came to fetch Theresa here?’
‘I took you to the right house, didn’t I?’ Junk turned to Theresa. ‘How are you, Tréz, anyway?’
She gave him a brave smile. She was surprised to see all the police stumble in behind Junk.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Bernard. ‘The boys in blue.’
‘Mr John Quay?’ The lead officer was sweating lightly under the V-neck of his golfing jumper.
‘That’s right.’ Junk raised the eyebrows above his good and bad eye in mock surprise. ‘Did you want to see me about something?’
The police identified themselves professionally: could he come with them to the station? They wanted to follow up last night’s interview with a few questions.
‘Do you think I should bring my lawyer with me?’ Junk nodded over at Theresa. ‘Ms Theresa O’Donnell, of Levenshulme.’
‘Is she a lawyer?’
‘She’s still a student,’ said Junk.
‘But to be brief, she’ll do in an emergency,’ said Bernard, at ease against the wall. ‘Although I think you’ll find she’s an art student.’
‘Well, she’s educated,’ shrugged Junk.
‘If you feel that you need a lawyer, we can arrange for your own or a duty solicitor to meet you at the station. But we really only want a chat, Mr Quay. I don’t believe you’ll need representation but it’s up to you, of course.’ The police were becoming impatient.
‘I’ll tell Burgess you dropped by, John Quay. I’m sure we can get you a lawyer out of petty cash.’
*
Estela and Michael made for the door and stepped back on to the street. The figures on mountain bikes still patrolled the area. When Estela passed by any one of them with Michael, they would nod or hold up their hands in salute. Out to their front, the tower blocks rose up as pebble-dashed silos. Michael cut across a bank of grass in sloping strides before realising that Estela was no longer beside him.
‘I’m not going down there in these heels,’ she said.
‘Fucking hell, Paul.’
‘Fuck you, nigger. It’s Estela.’
Michael broke into a smile and retreated to the pavement: ‘We’ll take the long way round. I would have helped you down, but I didn’t want none of these kids seeing me holding hands with an old slapper like you.’
The stairs up to Michael’s flat were as squalid as any she had seen before. The graffiti was in English but was unspeakable; somewhere a psychotic was jotting down passages on half the women who lived in the area. On the third landing, Estela slipped on the burnt and twisted Coca-Cola cans that lay strewn across the cement floor. She recognised them as home-made crack pipes. On the fourth, they stepped on to a walkway where the cold air almost washed away the urine-soaked stairs she had left behind. Michael held out his arm: this way. With the gesture, he sank back into the idea that he was with a woman; as he sometimes did in the past.
Before Michael finished turning the key in his door, it was opened by a young black woman, showing lightly of her pregnancy. The look she gave Estela had teeth. There was no doubt what she thought Estela was. Estela was thinking: mm-mm, Michael’s sweet babymother. Michael greeted the girl extravagantly and introduced her as Josette. The girl was part-way down the hall before he could introduce Estela.
They walked through to a room that did not seem unspacious. The bright greenery of the pot plants along the window sill, all legal shrubs, and the batik wall hangings made this front room welcoming. Beyond the window, there was another world.
‘Take a seat, Es-Tel-A,’ said Michael, taking pleasure in pronouncing the name. ‘Let Josette put the kettle on.’
‘Let Josette say Go Fuck Yourself.’ Josette stood in the door. Now that she had told him where to go, she faced him down.
‘Josette, honey.’ Michael tried winning her with his smile and dimples.
‘What are you doing bringing women here? You think I’m going to shimmy around bringing you tea and biscuits while you work at this slag in my front room? You’d better think again, you no-good geriatric shithead. What’s that I heard the boys calling you? OG. Original Gangsta? Fuck that. Beat-up Old Grandfather.’ Josette looked ready to spit on him.
‘Josette, honey.’
Estela couldn’t keep from laughing: ‘You tell him, sister. I got no interest in the slack creep, ’cept he mek tea for both of us.’
‘You heard the woman, and you know where the kettle is,’ said Josette.
Michael looked around from Estela to Josette: ‘I don’t fucking believe …’
‘Get in that kitchen. And you make sure you put the milk in a jug before you get back here with our brews.’ Josette stood away from the door, giving him the room he needed to slink into the kitchen. Michael took it, disappearing into the kitchen area beyond.
Josette sat opposite Estela, smoothing out her dress as she folded her bare smooth legs.
‘Estela,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe I seen you before.’
‘I am an old friend of Michael’s. But just a friend.’
‘You don’t need to explain. But I’m going to keep that man on the run. I don’t want him slipping if he wants to stay around with me.’
‘Are you married?’ asked Estela.
‘He’s got a long way to go before I’ll marry him,’ Josette said.
Michael returned from the kitchen. He was holding a white plastic jug-kettle in his hand. Set into its side was a calibrated transparent tube. On its inside, a red float. Michael was pointing to the tube, puzzled.
‘Josette. What’s this? When the little ball moves to the top, that mean the water’s boiled?’
‘Are you serious?’ Josette was staring at him. There was a pause, Michael didn’t know whether to answer: he was serious.
‘Just fill it with water and switch it on, dickhead.’
When Michael returned to the kitchen, Josette looked over to Estela and shook her head in disbelief: who allowed him to grow so old, so stupid?
Michael did not
completely mess up on the tea. While the three waited for it to brew, he began work on a joint. Josette was telling him, ‘You don’t need to put so much care into that: you won’t be smoking it while I’m still in the room.’
‘It’ll do the baby good, give it a mellow character like its father.’
‘Make it stunted, that’s all. Have you never heard of passive smoking?’
‘That’s what smoking is for: passivity, honey.’
Michael had to wait until Josette had drunk her tea and left. She wished Estela all the best and explained she was seeing her mother. That left Estela alone with Michael to talk about the old times and why, in these new times, she wanted to play with guns. Michael admitted that guns made him anxious.
‘The Western Union was the first posse to use guns in Manchester. What kind of rep is that, when there’s always going to be another psycho who’s even keener to shoot it out.’
‘I heard already about how the boys were sent down. They had taken to holding up rival posses with shotguns.’
Michael blew on the end of a long, cornet-shaped spliff. Taking a drag and holding the smoke for a six-count, he exhaled and started talking.
‘I was out of it at the time. If I hadn’t been in prison, maybe I could have worked out a better way of doing things. Some of the boys would visit me inside. As if it wasn’t bad enough being locked away from my family, they were telling me how great it was on the outside. They were saying: it’s the Summer of Love, man. There were these huge parties, up to ten thousand people in fields and warehouses, playing techno and trance. Everyone was doing ecstasy and acid, getting on one and talking peace and unity. I didn’t miss out on the ecstasy, you could get it in prison. But it’s not the same, is it? It’s not as though I was going to leap on the tables and start dancing. There was dancing the week we broke on to the roof of the prison during the riots. We danced for the TV cameras. But the ecstasy was wasted, it’s not as if anyone was going to start one great big love-in in prison. Maybe if you’d been there, some of the guys might have tried to get it on. But otherwise, no chance.
Acid Casuals Page 9
