by Joe Mitchell
Judging from the middle of the road music blaring from the DJ's speakers, this 2lst birthday party was definitely a family and friends affair, and the community hall was filled to bursting point with people, young and old.
Paul looked around, but couldn't see Debbie or Tony for the sheer weight of numbers giving it there all on the dancefloor in aid of The Birdie Song.
"Here you go, mate," Carl said as he passed Paul a can of beer he'd bought from the makeshift bar in the far corner. "There's some fucking tasty birds over by the bar if you fancy pulling something tonight."
Paul followed Carl's finger and started to laugh. The three tasty birds couldn't have been any older than l2, and all were wearing practically identical party dresses usually associated with kids of five or six.
lf they're old enough to bleed, then they're old enough to breed!" Carl added jokingly.
Just then, Tony made his way through the crowd of middle aged men who were standing by the edge of the dancefloor and laughing at their womenfolk flapping their arms chicken-style. "So you made it then!"
"Alright, mate," Paul replied. "We've just been eyeing up the talent."
Tony looked at the young girls Paul and Carl were nodding in the direction of and smiled. "Yeah, I think one of them's married, but you should be okay with the other two!"
"All set for tomorrow then?" Paul asked his skinhead mate.
"Yeah, Red Lion ten o'clock. Should be a good one!"
Tony then turned to Carl and said, "You don't fancy a trip to Millwall do you?"
Carl smiled. "No thanks, Tony. Knowing my recent form, I'll get lifted for dropping litter!"
"Paul was saying about your result at West Malling," Tony said. "Fucking steep weren't it?"
"Try telling that to the old biddy who passed sentence. I think she wanted to get home early so cancelled the cases after mine and gave me a day's worth of fines!"
As the three friends chatted away, Debbie came over with the birthday girl, Jane. Seeing them coming, Tony cut short the joke about the judge and the prostitute, and introduced Jane to his mates.
Jane was a good looking girl and Carl was straight in there with a birthday kiss. And he didn't leave it there either. Vienna by Ultravox was the DJ 's choice for loving couples everywhere, and before you could say Romeo and Juliet, Carl and Jane were slow dancing their way around the hall.
"Doesn't waste any time does he?" Debbie said to Paul who just smiled in return.
Seeing Carl and Jane whispering into each other's ear had quickly brought home to Paul the fact that he was alone. Worse than that, the girl he wanted was hundreds of miles away and couldn't even be bothered to talk to him on the phone. He wanted to ask Debbie if she'd heard anything, but the bloke had some pride left and didn't want to keep going on about her, especially when he sensed Debbie knew more than she'd been willing to tell him previously.
"Isn't that right, mate?"
Paul suddenly became aware that Tony was speaking to him, but he'd not heard a word. "Sorry?"
"I was just telling Debbie that you've got your eye on one of the birds by the bar!"
Tony and Debbie were laughing, and from where Paul was standing it looked like they were laughing at him. Taking the piss because he'd fallen for Carol and they knew she didn't want to know. And now they were saying all he could get was a spotty little kid. "What's so fucking funny?" Paul asked, with a sudden note of anger in his voice.
"Calm down mate," Tony said, seeing that Paul was no longer sharing the joke about the schoolgirls. "I was only pulling your leg!"
Tony went to put his arm on Paul's shoulder in a gesture of friendship, but Paul wasn't having any of it. He stepped back and looked at both Tony and Debbie. "That's it, good old Paul. Always good for a fucking laugh. You make me fucking sick!"
Paul was beginning to sound loud and was attracting looks from some of the other nearby guests. Even Carl caught a glimpse of what was happening and stopped dancing to look over.
"You don't know what you're saying, mate," Tony said. "That's the drink talking."
"Fuck you!" Paul shouted. "Fuck the lot of you bastards! You're all the fucking same! Two-faced bastards!"
By now Jane's father had come over to see what was happening, as had Carl to try and calm his friend down.
"I think it's time you left, young man," Jane's Dad said, pointing towards the door.
"You going to make me then, granddad?" was Paul's reply as he squared up to knock hell out of the man.
Carl and Tony stepped in to stop any fists flying and bundled Paul towards the door.
"Fuck off home and get some sleep," Tony said once they'd got him outside. He was angry that Paul had caused a scene at what should have been a relaxing knees-up for all present.
"So has Debbie heard anything from Carol or ain't I good enough to be told'?" Paul asked, still looking for confrontation. "Call yourself friends? You're fucking nothing, you and Debbie. Fucking nothing!"
Tony didn't have to take that sort of lip off of anyone and normally he wouldn't have thought twice about decking anyone for bad mouthing Debbie. But he knew Paul had had far too much to drink, and he also knew deep down that they had let Paul down. "I'll forget you said that. Now piss off home and make sure you're outside the Red Lion at ten o'clock sharp or we're leaving without you!"
"I ain't fucking going nowhere with you," Paul shouted as he began to walk away from the hall. "You're fucking nothing! Fucking nothing! The Syndicate is full of fucking pussies!"
Tony just shook his head as he saw Paul walk away into the night.
"He ain't had the best of days," Carl said as he waited with Tony to make sure Paul was pissing off home and wasn't going to come back in for more aggro. "His flat got turned over this afternoon and all he talked about in the pub was that bird Carol."
"Yeah, well he might as well forget her," Tony said as they both walked back into the hall where Debbie and Jane were waiting for them. "That slapper ain't going to do him no good. He don't know it, but she's getting married to a bloke from up her way in a few months so he doesn't have a look in."
Carl looked at Tony. "How comes you ain't told him then?"
Tony just looked at the ground. "It's a long story mate, but to be honest I don't think he'd thank me now even if I did tell him."
"Well, look who it ain't?"
Paul was stopped in his tracks by three blokes standing in his way. He recognised them instantly as some of the boneheads from the scooter dance of a few weeks previously.
"Where's your fucking mates now then?" said the bonehead with the celtic cross sewn on to the front of his black pilot jacket.
Paul said nothing. He was feeling lousy from all the drinking and couldn't be bothered answering.
The bonehead shoved Paul backwards. Then shoved him again. "Come on then, let's have it!"
Paul didn't even resist the shoves. He certainly was in no condition to take on three of them and was resigned to taking a hammering.
"Ain't so fucking hard now are ya!" the bonehead shouted into Paul's face. "You're a fucking tosser, that's all!"
Another one of the boneheads came up to Paul. "It ain't our style, three on to one, but if you and your mates want another go, just tell them to name the place and we'll fucking do you so badly you'll wish you hadn't been born!"
Paul stood there, wondering if this was some sort of joke. If him and two others of the Syndicate had caught up with some bastard who had knocked shit out of them a few weeks earlier, they would have kicked him up and down the road like a football. And yet here were three members of the Hitler Youth giving him a mouthful and a lecture on gang law.
As they left Paul to go on his way, one of them did give him a boot in the thigh to speed him up, but that was it. Maybe the world didn't have it in for him after all.
Paul had walked all the way home. The cold night air coupled with a five mile trek and the run-in with the Nazi skinheads, had done a lot to sober him up by the time he reached his flat. The damage caus
ed by the forced entry could still be seen and he hardly had to turn his key before the door swung open.
It was now three o'clock in the morning, and when he entered his room he could see that his Mum had done her best to tidy things up. A clean bedspread covered his bed and she had even managed to salvage most of his Gillingham poster and stick it back up with his silk scarf. On the floor she had piled up the records that hadn't been smashed, but by the looks of them none could be described as being in the mint condition Paul had always tried to keep them in.
He sat down on his bed and held his head in his hands. As he did so, he realised that the bastards in the flat above were playing their music at full volume again. Only this time, Paul recognised the thudding tune. Sitting up, he looked over at the pile of vinyl his Mum had gathered together and realised that what he was hearing was one of his own records.
Getting to his feet, Paul grabbed his baseball bat and flew out of the flat and up the stairs to the sixth floor. He could hear the music clearly now and recognised Prince Buster's Rough Rider immediately. Anger raged through his body as he put one and one together and realised that it was the junkies in the flat above him who had turned over his poor mother's flat. He was going to kill them for this. Fucking kill them.
He kicked at the door and saw it shudder in its frame. Then, taking a step backwards, he kicked out again, and the door opened wide.
The flat was full of the sound of the Prince. You would have to be deaf or dead not to hear it at that volume. The rooms were identical in layout to Paul's, and he quickly made his way to the lounge where he could tell the music was coming from.
The room was a fucking tip. Beer cans, crisp packets, dirty ashtrays, fish and chip papers everywhere. The inside of a dustbin lorry looked cleaner. The walls were covered in graffiti and the stench suggested that no windows had been opened for months. It was enough to make Paul feel sick, it really was.
Out for the count in the chair by the record player was one of the filthy hairy bastards who had noised Paul up in the downstairs lobby the previous week. Drink, drugs, whatever it was, this particular piece of human shit was oblivious to the world, let alone Paul standing over him. The record player was automatically playing the same album, over and over, just as it no doubt had done every other night Paul had been kept awake by these bastards.
The modem day hippy didn't even flinch when Paul's bat smashed into his face, once, twice, three times. That's all it took for it to be beaten to a pulp. Paul then, ripped the needle off his record, and smashed the hi-fi to pieces. Sparks flew as his trusty bat made sure it would never make another noise again.
Paul caught his breath and looked at the wanker he had just wasted. Then for good measure, Paul took out his dick and pissed all over the battered hippy's unconscious carcass.
What would have been his bedroom was empty, but as he pushed open the door to the main bedroom door and switched on the light, he could see a naked girl frantically trying to wake her boyfriend from his drug-induced coma. On seeing Paul standing there, she began to scream hysterically, grabbing at the blankets to cover her tits. The stupid bitch didn't have a pair worth hiding. She looked no older than the schoolgirls at the party and here she was shacked up with a fucking druggy.
"Get out the fucking bed!" Paul screamed at her, but she stayed there, frozen with panic, pleading to be left alone.
Paul grabbed her by the hair and pulled her out of the bed, leaving her on the floor screaming at Paul to leave them alone. The unshaven face of her boyfriend began to show signs of life as his heavily tattooed body sat up in the bed. Paul didn't give him the chance to find out what was going on though. Before he had even opened his eyes, Paul swung his bat into the druggy's face with enough force that you could hear the cheek bone splinter on impact.
After that blow, the bastard was going nowhere, and with the little girl still screaming for him to leave them alone, Paul pulled away the blankets and smashed the bat into the pathetic bloke's private parts. The force with which he connected guaranteed it would be a very long time before he'd be shafting anyone again.
The girl was now sobbing uncontrollably, and to get her attention Paul had to grab her face in his hand and hold it an inch away from his own face. "If the pigs ever come looking for me for this, I'm going to come after you, okay? So keep your fucking mouth shut! You didn't see anything okay?"
The girl just looked at Paul, her eyes full of fear.
"I said, okay?"
The added anger in Paul's contorted face saw the girl nodding in agreement.
He pushed her away, leaving her lying on the filthy carpet, trying to preserve any dignity she still had by pulling her discarded jeans over her body.
"You can tell lover boy there that if he ever messes with me again, I'll fucking kill him!"
Paul left the bedroom and returned to the squalid atmosphere of the lounge. The hippy he'd battered earlier was still motionless in the seat, his face covered in a mixture of blood and piss, making it unlikely that even his own mother would have recognised him. If in fact cunts like him ever had a mother.
Paul looked around, but couldn't see his TV or video recorder. Both had no doubt already been sold for a few quid each to pay for the scum's latest hit. He then picked up four albums that he recognised as his and made his way out of the flat.
Chapter 11
PAUL woke up suddenly. Daylight was breaking through a crack in the curtains and a quick look at his watch told him it was ten past eight. He could here the distant sounds of his Mum in the kitchen . and then remembered the state the flat was in following the burglary.
He knew he should get up and help his Mum finish cleaning the place up, but he just couldn't face it. He'd had enough of living in the Medway towns and wanted to get out. No job, no money, and still there was always some bastard waiting to shit on you. Well, he'd had enough and was only too willing to leave behind what little he had to start afresh somewhere else.
The argument with Tony flashed into his mind. He knew Tony was one of the best mates he could ever hope to have, and now regretted what he'd said to him. He wondered what his friend would say if he turned up at the Red Lion. Probably nothing. It wasn't the first barney they'd had and it wouldn't be the last either.
But Paul had no intentions of going to Millwall today. Not because he didn't want to face Tony, but because he wanted away. He had enough money to get himself up to Hull, and that's what he was going to do. Carol could hardly not talk to him if he turned up on her doorstep, and it might bring home to her just how much he really did care for her.
It was half past nine by the time Paul had got washed, dressed and finished his cup of coffee. His Mum had offered to cook him a fry up, but after yesterday's session, food was not a pleasant thought, especially if it was served swimming in grease.
As he strolled to the telephone box a short walk from the flats, he turned around and looked up at where he lived and the net curtains that filled his flat's windows. At least he'd sorted out the scum from the flat above. They wouldn't be in any hurry to turn his flat over again, that was for sure.
The sun was shining, and as he walked along in his boots, jeans, braces and white and blue Fred Perry, he was beginning to feel good about what he had decided. He would ring Carol and tell her he was on his way up to Hull that day. And if she didn't want to see him again fair enough, but she would have to tell him to his face. That way he wouldn't go all the way up there to find her family had fucked off for the weekend or something, leaving him on the doorstep looking like a prize lemon when nobody answered. It would also give Carol a chance to tell her parents about him.
An old lady was just leaving the phone box as Paul approached, and he held the door open for her while she came out.
"At least it's working today, son," she said.
"Miracles do happen then!" Paul replied, knowing it was something of a national lottery to find a telephone box that hadn't been vandalised or wasn't 999 calls only.
Taking the piec
e of paper with Carol's number on it out of his pocket, he picked up the receiver and began to dial. Butterflies filled his stomach and for a moment he thought about just slamming the phone down, but he knew that if he wanted something in this life he had to make it happen. The worst that could happen was that her Mum could answer the phone. And that's exactly what happened.
"Hello," the women's voice said.
"Hello," Paul said hesitantly. "Can I speak to Carol please?"
To his surprise, the woman didn't sound like the ogre she had been made out to be at all. "No, I'm sorry, she's gone out shopping. Can I take a message for her?"
"Yeah, can you tell her Paul from Gillingham rang and that I'll give her a ring later."
"Right, okay," Carol's Mum replied. "She's gone into town this morning and then is going to see Ray, so probably won't be back until tea time, okay?"
Ray? Who the fuck was Ray? He had to ask. He just had to. "Who's Ray?"
"Her fiance . . ."
The word hit Paul like a ton of bricks, but before he could react or say something, the pips sounded to tell him his money was running out. He fumbled about in his pocket and pulled out a fifty pence piece which the slot gratefully accepted - and then the line went dead.
Paul banged the telephone to try and get his money back, but he had lost it. He searched his pockets for another coin, but found nothing. He banged the coin box in frustration, but still it refused to give him back his money.
That fucking bitch! Paul thought, the anger welling up inside of him threatening to smash the telephone box to pieces in his bid to get his lost coin back. He deserved to know what the fuck was going on with Carol. His mind was full of so many questions, and just as he was beginning to get some answers, British Telecom steals his money!
As he continued to bang his fist against the cold metal, he saw a soap dodger walking past. He recognised him as one of the scruffs who lived in the flat he'd turned over last night, only he hadn't been there during Paul's little visit.
