Bully

by A. J. Kirby

Chapter Eleven

  “The levee was dry”

  How do you find someone that doesn’t want to be found? In Newton Mills, the general plan would be to check some of the ropier pubs; the Choke actually being one of the better ones. For there are places in Newton Mills in which any sane person should fear to tread. Places where, in the golden days, and perhaps even now, bare-knuckle boxing is live and immediately in your face; far more diverting than the bore-draw in the football, being beamed by satellite - or more likely from some crackly Norwegian channel - onto the massive screen in the corner.

  Or you could try some of the drug dens. Rented flats above the shops in the high street whose naked light-bulbs burn brightly through the night; places where everyone’s welcome, providing there’s a few crisp notes – no questions asked – in your back burner.

  If the person that you were searching for was young, you could check some of the old, crumbling mill buildings down in the gorge, where me and Dick and Lion and sometimes good old Tommy – rock on Tommy – would skive school and smoke someone’s mum’s fags, pilfered that day from their handbag on the kitchen table. If the person was old, you could, of course, try the old warehouses, up by the toffeeworks; places where you’d share your breakfast with a veritable army of rodents and otherwise empurpled townspeople.

  Where you’d never look is outside the town boundaries. Newton Mills has a pull about it. It draws you back in; wraps its icy claws around your heart and won’t let go, no matter how much you kick and scream. Richard Featherstone told me that, and more on our lonely tramp along the early morning streets. He told me of how difficult he’d found it to make a life for himself and his children and for Laura. He told me about how he’d always meant to give up on the smack, but there was always a face in the pub that grinned and winked at you until you followed it, like a rat behind the pied-piper and found yourself in some squalid dive, squandering your kid’s inheritance on a few hours of escape from the mundanity of life in a small town.

  ‘It’s hopeless; we could try every place in this damned town and we still might miss him. There’s too many places to hide. Too many old buildings and off the radar places… Hell, the whole town’s set up to be off the radar,’ said Dick.

  I simply nodded in assent. I already knew what needed to be done. I knew that the one man that might be able to tell me what I needed to know was my poor old dad. He would know, more than anyone else, where Twinnie would be. And although I’d not spoken to him for years – I’d cut all ties with everyone as soon as I left – I knew he’d hold no grudges. He, as much as anyone, knew what the town could drive a person to do.

  I knew dad would still be living in the old house up on Hangman’s Row. I knew that inside, he’d still keep the memories of my mum, my brother and me burning. But it was only when we crossed Meat Street that Dick seemed to divine where we were headed.

  ‘Th- that’s the first place anyone would look for us – for you,’ he stammered, suddenly scared again. ‘As soon as I hear the sirens, I’m outta there, Bully. No matter how much you wanna see your old dad.’

  I grimaced.

  ‘There won’t be any sirens, Dick. Nobody will know or care that the old bastard is dead on his floor. There won’t be any sirens.’

  ‘But Tommy… Tommy Peaker doesn’t come with any sirens on, does he?’

  ‘No. No he doesn’t, but he can find us anywhere. It doesn’t matter where we are. When he wants to find us, he’ll find us.’

  ‘Like he has a tracking device?’ asked Dick.

  ‘Yes; a bit like that,’ I confirmed, feeling like I was speaking to a child. And in a very real way, Dick was very much a child. He yearned for the company of others, despite his problem. He yearned for approval and for a nice pat on the head. He yearned for an encouraging wink and that sheen of unreality which had, up to this point, governed his hopscotch path of a life. Sometimes, he was just like Private Selly.

  We cut through the allotments to gain some time. Most of them were weeded over, but I noted that my old dad’s one was still looking relatively healthy. There was a broken window in his shed though, and graffiti on the far wall. Part of me longed to scrub it off for him; to make just that one part of dad’s life easier to take. The allotment was his only escape, I knew that, but even there, the Newton Mills curse had started to encroach.

  After the allotments, there was a steep slope which took us down to the old railway tracks. Not trusting myself on crutches, I slid down on my arse. Not a very dignified – or army-like – way of doing things, but it was the only way. Even the railway tracks were overgrown; thick grass crept up and onto the wooden slats. A rail crash here was surely only a few weeks away. That’s if they even bothered to send trains out Newton Mills way any more. I didn’t bother to ask Dick about that; I couldn’t ever imagine a time where I’d have to do something as normal as catch a train again. Couldn’t imagine stowing my crutch away in the luggage rack and then trying to seek out some kindly young scout that would help me get it down and escort me off the carriage. Couldn’t imagine what I’d need to catch a train for; I was already on the runaway train to hell, and that stopped for no man or beast.

  And then we were crawling up the opposite slope. Feeling the cut of broken bottles tearing at our knees; feeling the mud slipping through our fingers; feeling the fallen leaves slippy underneath us; everything trying to drag us back down from whence we came. I looked over at Dick, and his face was now blacked-up like a commando’s. My own must have looked very similar. I wondered what the hell my dad was going to think when we turned up at the front door like that.

  Oh, who am I kidding? The states I’ve turned up at that front door in my time; covered in cuts and bruises; drugged-up to the nines; soaked in chip fat after the time we stole a barrel from out the back of the pub, only to find it wasn’t beer inside… Dad wouldn’t be shocked at all. Turning up as we would do would be run of the mill in Newton Mills. It would be hardly worth a passing comment.

  We gained Hangman’s Row finally. I once asked dad about the name, and of course he knew. Turned out that the little row of terraced houses wasn’t named after some town hangman that used to live there at all – something that really disappointed my blood-hungry teenage self – but because the row were built on an overhang above the gorge. He thought that the row used to be called ‘Hanging Row’, but it was changed because the townsfolk of Newton Mills craved bloodthirsty stories, just like I did.

  The road was fully cobbled, as it had been for about two hundred years. There weren’t many cars parked up, probably due to the fact that it was so difficult to get up the slope and onto the road proper. And the whole place looked like some model village representation of where I used to live. Everything seemed about a third smaller than it had once been. Even the old tree in the garden of the corner house – one that I’d been forbidden to climb, but had done so anyway – seemed less formidable than it once was.

  I could already see our old house, tucked away unobtrusively between the stone-clad frontage of Mrs. Watkins’ house and the new conservatory at the front of the Higginbotham family home. Memories came flooding back. Dad teaching me to ride my bike on this street; how it made my teeth chatter as I rode over every cobble; how funny it sounded when I shouted wheeeeeeee over all those bumps and heard my voice bouncing around like the wheels were. I remembered falling off that bike too, and smashing up my arm. Having to be taken to hospital. Staying in for three days and dad never going home once, so far as I knew. I also recalled breaking into another neighbour’s house – although I couldn’t for the life of me remember their name – and stealing four cans of Special Brew from their fridge and pissing on their carpet. Had that really been me?

  There was one thing on the street that surprised me. There was a plaque on the wall of a house about four doors down from ours. I’d never in my life seen it before. I stopped to read it:

  The Drunkard’s Reform: Here lived Thomas Mellor, who washed his hands of that purple demon drink in the year of
our lord 1876. He joined the family of the Church and lived for the rest of his life as a good Christian and a valued member of the community.

  ‘Have you ever seen that before?’ I asked Dick.

  ‘What: the plaque? We used to laugh about it. Said you an’ your dad should’ve lived there. You never could take your booze, Bully.’

  Dick moved away, but I stayed and read the plaque again. My eyes kept returning to that one word: ‘purple.’ And I couldn’t help but notice, out of the corner of my eye, that Dick, his silhouette ringed by the rising sun, glowed purple once more.

  Madness, I thought, shaking my head. This whole town is riddled with madness.

  Our front door was so dark blue that it was almost purple. Another sign, I thought. But as my hand clenched around the old rusted knocker – the one with the angel’s face on it – I could barely bring myself to use it. Seeing my hesitation, and already jumpy from the drug withdrawal, Dick reached past me and rattled the letter box a little.

  It took a while, but eventually, through the frosted glass of the small window, we saw a small, stooped figure shuffling towards the door. I reeled back in shock. But the figure, who I so wanted not to be dad, didn’t click open the latch. Instead, he shouted through the letter box.

  ‘I told you last time; no doorstep preachers. I’m not interested in going to damn church. And I’m certainly not interested if you’re trying to sell me something this early in the bloody morning. So, kindly, go away.’

  His voice was strong; stronger than his body looked. Even through the frosted glass it had been a shock. I wanted to run away, but already Dick was readying himself to perform his part of this unique letter-box communication ritual.

  ‘Mr. Bull, it’s me, Dick… uh… Richard Featherstone… Oh and I’ve got your…’

  Before Dick could finish his sentence, dad had wrenched the door open. And had wrenched me into him, clasping me into his once great chest with all the strength he could muster.

  It took all the strength I could muster to ask: ‘What happened to you, dad?’

  I pushed myself away from him and took in the whole of him; the worn slippers with holes at each big-toe; the faded blue pyjama bottoms; the creased shirt. And he was unshaven. I’d never seen him unshaven before and somehow it made him look ill. His eyes were ringed with dark lines – the eyeliner of worry, I thought – and his hair was receding badly.

  But then he smiled: ‘I could ask you the same thing myself. Look at the state of you. Covered in crap the pair of you. Come in; get washed up. I’ll stick the kettle on.’

  It was only as he ushered us over the threshold that he held me back a moment, looked into my eyes and I saw pleading.

  ‘I got the call from your CO. He told me you’d been honourably discharged. That’s the truth, isn’t it, son?’

  I nodded my head down towards my foot. Or what was left of my foot. I watched as he lowered his head; at once wanting to see, but not wanting to see. Then, he simply shook his head and wandered back off down the hall, following Dick into the kitchen. I swear that I heard him mutter something like: ‘fucking idiot. I told him not to join the army.’

  I followed them; there was no other choice. And I tried not to make the comparison between dad’s single man lifestyle and that of old Burt. But it was hard not to, given the smell of the place. Although dad had tried to cover the lingering smell of defeat with that of Pledge air-freshener, there was no disguising the loneliness of the place now that mum, my bro and me had abandoned ship. Deserted. Gone AWOL. Everything looked spick and span but tired and worn, too. As though it was all about surfaces, and underneath, the decay was just fighting to get out.

  The kitchen was so much like Burt’s that I wanted to cry. The same fake-wood cupboards and 1970s white goods, the same lino even. It was as though whoever sold kitchens sold in a job lot to Newton Mills, flat-packed, flat-lined and flat-fucked. There were bits of paint peeling off in the corners, by the ceiling, where once dad would have borrowed a ladder to reach, but now couldn’t really be bothered. One cup and one plate and a single knife and fork lay draining by the sink. I felt purple with rage.

  ‘What do you both want to drink?’ asked dad, clicking on the kettle. It looked scaly, like it was a half-alive reptile or something. ‘Can’t offer you any alcohol, but I can do a nice pot of tea.’

  ‘Tea’s great,’ said Dick.

  ‘Can I have a coffee, dad?’ I asked.

  Dad raised his eyes to the ceiling and creaked open a cupboard door. Started rooting around for the offending jar.

  ‘I didn’t know you’d be coming back,’ he said, to the cupboard. ‘Otherwise I’d have been down the shops. Got some stuff in special.’

  ‘We’re not staying,’ said Dick.

  ‘No? Well what you doing then?’ dad asked the cupboard, perhaps hoping that it would come up with some better answers than his wayward son.

  ‘Just wanted to see you, that’s all,’ I said, pulling at a frayed edge of the table cloth. Hearing it start to rip.

  ‘But what are you going to do with yourself?’

  ‘We’re looking for Twinnie, Mr. Bull,’ interrupted Dick. ‘Paul Morton. Gaz here thought you might know where he was.’

  Dad spun round, coffee jar in hand. Evidently, he was having trouble unscrewing the top.

  ‘And why on earth would you think I knew where he was?’

  ‘Just a feeling I had, that’s all,’ I muttered. I’d been wrong to come back, I knew that now. Wrong to think that all the unspoken wrongs between the two of us could just be forgotten about over a nice pot of tea. And yet dad still couldn’t find it in himself to yell and bawl at me, despite the fact that he’d been the one left to tell my Jane that I’d done one and fucked off into the army.

  Dad shook his head, took the kettle off its base even though it hadn’t boiled yet. Started to pour out drinks into three faded old mugs. One of them, I thought, had our own school crest on it. It was a branch – supposedly an olive branch, I thought – but it always struck me as though it was the bony hand of someone giving the rest of us a two-fingered salute.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Dick, moving over to the sink where he ran a little cold in to the mug in order that he could drink it straight away. Then, as an afterthought, he turned on the hot tap and stuck his head under it. Dirty water splashed everywhere. I could tell dad longed to pull him away from the sink, kick him up the arse and send him away from the house with a flea in his ear. Instead he just stood there, leaning against the fridge, cradling his brew like it was a life-support system. Like Burt’s cigs.

  The brew didn’t need a splash of cold. It was already drinkable anyway. I drank in the sour coffee and felt the energy already beginning to course through my veins.

  ‘What did the army tell you about the accident? My leg?’ I asked.

  Dad sighed: ‘Just that everyone else died in there, but you got out. You’re lucky, Gary. You know that don’t you? Don’t go ruining the rest of your life just because you were injured. You’re lucky. Make something of…’

  ‘I can’t listen to stuff like that, dad. Not now. Not now. Just don’t worry about me, that’s all,’ I groaned. Already, he was starting to remind me of Montaffian… Or had Montaffian reminded me of dad? Was that why I’d taken to the old doc so easily?

  Dad looked away. Looked out of the window over the gorge.

  ‘Your mate Lion died. Did they tell you that?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I admitted.

  ‘Well don’t go the same way as him,’ he said, softly. ‘And I do worry about you, Gary. That’s my job.’

  I took a long gulp of my tea; watched as the half-clean Dick poured most of his down the sink. These sort of conversations took me right back to the old days. The awkwardness of the meetings between my friends and my dad. The fact that they forced us to go out, looking for trouble. Anything but face the questions and the demands on our time that he always seemed to make. Always there was some scheme he tried to interest us in. Like building a godda
mn pigeon coop in the back garden. That was one of his worst ones. He never had the slightest interest in pigeons.

  ‘Right: we’re off now, Gaz,’ announced Dick from over by the sink. He tried to wink at me, and dad caught the implied meaning.

  ‘Better had, I suppose,’ I said, making a great effort to sound as though leaving would be a great effort.

  ‘So soon?’ asked dad, and I was sure that for a second, I heard something in his voice crack. ‘You not going to even attempt to clean yourself up, Gary?’

  ‘We ain’t going birding, Mr. Bull,’ said Dick. ‘Not at this fucking time in the morning.’

  He roared with laughter at his own joke. Dad and I stared at each other across the frayed-edge table top and I found myself shaking my head. What I was saying no to, I had absolutely no idea, but eventually dad nodded. Dick made as though to help me to my feet, but dad ushered him away. Grasped me under the arms just like Tommy Peaker had, and then Burt after him. All three of them had a strength which far outweighed mine. Perhaps it was because they had righteousness behind them, or some such crap. I didn’t care. All I knew was that I had to be out of the house, and if that meant dad carrying me out the door, then so be it.

  Dick was already outside kicking his heels on the cobbles when dad let me loose from his iron grasp.

  ‘Paul Morton’s trouble. More trouble than that idiot that you’re with already. Don’t get messed up in what he’s messed up in,’ he said.

  ‘I already am,’ I sighed.

  Dad clapped a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘There’s always ways out. Whatever the mess may be.’

  I shook my head. Not this time.

  ‘He’s camped out up at Summit Farm,’ said dad, quietly. ‘Been living off rabbits and suchlike but he caught one of old Maurice Dailly’s sheep the other day… There’s going to be a mob going up there later on this week. Probably tomorrow. Whatever you do; don’t be there tomorrow. They’re taking pitchforks and things. You know, sometimes this place reminds me of some medieval village. It’s the same mentality.’