Sweet Agony

by Paul Sykes

  'Reight then,' he said, and rubbed his hands together as if he wanted to start a fire. 'I'll get l' job sorted art the minute we get home,' he said, as we parked behind a big hotel in Rhyl.

  It was the following evening before we reached home and if Norm sorted out the turkeys every week it would be another little pension on top of the one I was being paid for looking after Christmas Tree's interests. His name had come from buying acres of Christmas trees in Scotland every year and bringing them home to sell to market traders. I was pleased Mother didn't know about him or the house would be like the New Forest. He was in his 50s, stout, red face and had a terrible chest problem, but it was nothing compared to the problem he was having with the person he employed.

  The job I'd done at Blackpool for the lads who'd worked the

  mock-auctions had been so good they still used my name to keep

  order and settle dispute. C.T. had been threatened, if he made any more accusations I’d be told.

  Vinnie had been right about earning a few quid, but then Vinnie could smell a pound note in a room full of sweaty socks. It was a straightforward rip-off. C.T. had paid the season’s rent on a promenade shop and bought the stock to be sold. The person he employed a little drippy Manchester kid who thought everybody who didn’t live in a big city had to be daft, was paid 20p in the pound to sell the stuff but was buying and selling his own gear. When C.T. discovered what was going on he'd been told he was imagining and if he didn't up I'd be told. CT told Vinnie who in turn told me, and for £ 100 per 28 days I’d come over from Wakefield and sort out any trouble which might arise in the future. It was C.T.s suggestion, to which I with short of and to faith he me two weeks in advance and seemed more pleased than me.

  After I'd paid the proprietress of the Queens Hotel, a woman with a blue rinse and a face that would chop sticks, a woman Kath said, it was a pleasure to take a few pairs of sheets from, we set off to see Chester Zoo with Elaine coming out of her shell at last. She said all the animals would be on tranquillisers and not worth a balloon. She may have been right because they all seemed blissfully happy apart from a mucky-looking polar bear that appeared to want the frozen tundra of the Arctic. Everybody was aware of the poor bear's feelings as it padded at the side of the pool, up and down, up and down, stop and stare, up and down, stop and stare as if it was in the condemned cell and the people on the bridge were its executioners.

  'It'll be reight tomorra,' Norm said. 'It's 'ad a bad letter that’s all. Nowt to worry abart.'

  I had to laugh because we'd both been thinking about prison from the bear's action; I'd been out 3 months now not including the fortnight on remand. Norm had been out over two years and he hadn't served anywhere near as long as me but yet prison was as real as the air we breathed for us both. If it had been up to us we'd have released it without a second's thought. It was the first time I'd been to a zoo and it took 5 full hours to walk round and see it all but even then we felt sure we'd missed bits and the poor old bear was the blot on the landscape. It didn't stop me asking Elaine the minute we

  reached home if she'd mind if I converted the cellars into a club, club sounded better then a shebeen, and explained what I had in mind. She hummed and ha'd and said she'd think about it and while she did I went to see Kay's new boyfriend, the butcher, to ask him about buying 50 turkeys, maybe weekly.

  Standing at the side of the poolroom in 'The Royal', a pub in Ossett town centre with the best beer for miles the old feller said, watching him drinking lager, and listening to the cracks he made, I couldn't see him being Kay's boyfriend much longer.

  His sense of humour wasn't subtle enough for her and he was too short. His lack of size didn't impair his life and vitality, he had the title 'Whiz-kid of Ossett', and told everybody he would finish his days a millionaire.

  'Nar then Paul,' He grinned from ear to ear. 'Is tha waitin' t' play winner?'

  'No, you're too good for me,' I replied. ' I'm wanting to have a talk with you in private if you can spare a minute.'

  His face lost colour although he retained a smile and I thought it was guilt, he'd been taking liberties with Kay. He'd no need to worry until she told me and she'd not said a word.

  He listened carefully, slowly regaining the natural pink in his cheeks.

  'Yeah, bring 'em t' back door when you get 'em an' I'll pay you straight up,' he said with enthusiasm when I'd finished. It sounded like relief to me, a business proposition instead of what he'd reckoned. I decided I'd make a point of watching Kay from now on.

  While Elaine pondered on the subject of the club I nipped across town to observe Kay at home, that was when she was there. She always seemed to be going somewhere or just come back and was getting dolled up to go out again. It was a rare event to see her doing anything at home but using it as a transit camp between the market, stables and going courting. She seemed happy enough so I didn't say anything. I didn't want her to think I was interfering, sticking my nose in where where it wasn't wanted. She'd already accused me of it once, when I'd first come home.

  She'd been sitting on the settee holding hands with her fiancé while I did a series of exercises with a barbell at the side of the telly. It was too cold to exercise anywhere in the house except the front

  room without the risk of pulling a muscle. The fiancé, a tall, skinny, gormless-looking kid said it wasn't for him when I offered him a go, he wasn't interested in anything really physical.

  'How come you're sitting here and not out somewhere?'

  He had no money, not a penny until he drew his wages on Friday.

  'Do you know, you're the first butcher I've met who's been skint,' I said. ' You're the manager too, aren't you?'

  He grinned like a village idiot and I wanted to throw him through the window into the front garden but all I said was, 'Well Kay, he seems like a nice honest lad you've picked.'

  'You mind your own business, you big ugly pig,' Kay threatened, her eyes narrowed. 'Keep your ugly big nose out.'

  Three days later she broke off the engagement and the butcher sent his brother a week later to collect the ring.

  She'd been subdued for a while but she was resilient and had plenty of interests besides courting. She was up to her neck at the moment in organising her third Gymkhana and didn't notice my searching looks for bruises, grazes, or cuts. I'd keep my eye on her though. There was something not quite right with the whiz-kid of Ossett.

  * * * *

  Elaine was laid by my side like a sack of potatoes when I heard noises coming from the cellars the following Friday morning. It was early, 6: 10 a.m., but there wasn't anything unusual in waking so early, I'd been doing it for years, ever since I could remember. My hearing was acute and I could pinpoint where a noise was coming from and what was the cause in no time but I couldn't understand the cause of these particular sounds. Dressing in silence I slipped down the stairs and through the funny little door to the cellars.

  Walt Disney in his heyday couldn't have made a scene better than the one that greeted me. The passage to the back door and both cellars were heaving with huge, white turkeys, milling all over and filling the air with invisible grit and the floor with dollops of shit.

  'Haw, haw, haw,' Norm laughed. 'What's tha reckon to these then?'

  He was leaning against the table with Frankie Leach standing behind with a big silly grin on his moonface. '

  You said they'd be dead Norm.' I was incredulous.

  Frank casually booted one in the air, 'Don't worry they soon will be,' he said, and drew back his foot. 'Don't be kickin' 'em Frank' Norm ordered, , Tha'll bruise t' meat.'

  I'd not expected this, not by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't know exactly what I had expected but it wasn't a houseful of live, healthy turkeys.

  Frank couldn't have been more wrong when he'd said they would soon be dead, killing them was like trying to knit fog. Necks stretched like chest expanders, twisted, bent and broken and they still staggered about. Some lay dead for 5 minutes then came back to life. They
didn't panic like I'd seen pigs do at the cattle market when I'd been a nipper the second they realised they were heading for the bacon factory. The turkeys staggered and reeled to join the queue to let us have another go as if they all had a death wish. After 10 minutes I told Norm to hold them on the table while I flattened their heads with a lump hammer. None were afflicted with resurrection after I'd clumped them.

  The Cortina was well down on its springs with 6cwt of turkeys in the back as I drove to the butcher's shop 3 hours later. He knew what to expect. I'd said at the price he was paying he could afford to employ 3 or 4 women to pluck and dress them. It would be a good idea too, I'd added, to quarter them. It would still leave a lump of turkey weighing over 31b, more than enough for the Sunday joint, and that way the turn-over would be greater, he'd make more profit, I'd supply them every week and we'd both make a regular wage.

  A 20-year-old whiz-kid with his own shop in a prime position isn't going to take any notice of a feller like me, a lump of wood who'd spent most of his life in the nick. Everybody knows people who've been in the nick are idiots and he wasn't any different. The turkeys were heaped in a storeroom as though they'd been washed up in a flood when he paid me 10 minutes after arriving and I knew then he wouldn't be wanting any more, they were too much like hard work for him but he didn't say so. He said, 'Let's see how these go and I'll let you know. ' It caused me once again to think they were conscience money.

  He didn't want any more and the other lot had gone bad he told me

  the following week. With investments like that he wouldn't be a

  whiz-kid for long or Kay's boyfriend I thought, but didn't say so.

  Norm hadn't come this time now the feller knew where to deliver. He backed the firm's van to the Cortina and transferred the live turkeys from one to the other with a quick twist of their necks and laid them dead in the back. Like anything, it takes practice and it wasn't something I really wanted to know. Norm came over later and we spent all day selling them in ones, twos and threes until we only had 4 left. We had two each and called it a day. We'd made more money but we'd earned every penny.

  Elaine, in the meantime had said she couldn't let me turn the cellars into a club in case her husband found out, after all the house was half his. What she didn't know was I'd had a local builder in to look at the cellars and appraise • the work I wanted doing. The way the house was constructed it would be positively dangerous to alter anything in case the building collapsed and took the rest of the road with it. The idea still persisted though. The two front ground floor rooms could be used and we could live in the cellars, after all they weren't cellars really but two ground floor rooms at the back: basement flats they'd be called in London. Once the idea had taken root I had to tell Elaine.

  We were sitting in the dining room, me eating breakfast and her sitting opposite watching me like I was doing something miraculous. She didn't eat a thing until much later and couldn't understand where my appetite came from. She'd been in bed while I'd been up over 3 hours, had a run and done a full session of exercises. I was starving.

  'But Elaine you can't let a lovely big house like this go to waste. We can be earning a grand a week from it if you'll only do as I ask. All we do is soundproof the windows, take up the carpets, erect a bar and play records. You know what Wakefield's like, there isn't a single place where you can get a drink after hours. '

  'It's not me,' she protested, 'It's him. If he found out he'd be straight up Wood Street and report it. I've told you, he's dead straight'. 'He won't know unless you tell him. Anyway why should he care if the mortgage is being paid?'

  'Somebody will tell him. The whole stinking place is full of grasses.' She sipped her tea and grimaced. 'Anyway if he doesn't find out you can bet Dawson will. You know what he's like.'

  'But there isn't any need to tell anybody apart from possible punters. He's not daft enough to cut his own throat is he? I mean the

  house will be paid for in less than a year. He'll be earning without

  doing anything and he can't be nicked for anything either.'

  'Yeah, you're right, and I know where we can get everything.'

  She was suddenly consumed with the idea. She slammed her cup on the saucer, her face cracked into a smile, unwashed and sleep-riddled.

  'Marion's husband, you remember Marion don't you from Heppy's. Well her husband got nicked for having a club. He got 15 months for having live sex on the stage but until he did he was making bombs of money. We can buy the optics and all the other bits and pieces now he's closed and we'll get 'em for next to nothing as well.' Her face lost its animation and a puzzled frown appeared.

  'I'm not sure if the cellars will be big enough though or, if it comes to that, high enough either. Come on, let's go down and have a look.'

  She wanted to know where the feathers were from, she'd not seen them before. I was too pleased to think straight and told her about the turkeys.

  'I've to earn a living Elaine,' I explained, thinking at the same time, now I'd managed to get her to accept the club idea, of a way I could transfer it from the cellars to the next floor. Her mention of the live sex show had given me another idea. One room the bar, live in the one op-posite, and all four bedrooms have a prostitute. Punters could have a drink while they waited. They could have any room number they wanted and I'd swop the girls from room to room so there' d be no favourites or fall outs. The possibilities were endless.

  With a bit of luck and planning I could have a regular income and have no more worries about making ends meet.

  In novels what usually happens now is I go from strength to strength until in 20 years time. I become a major force on the stock market, own a string of theatres, newspapers, television stations, knighted in the new years honours list and live happily ever after, but life in reality isn't like that. What happened was I slapped Elaine's arse the following Saturday night and she left home to go live at her mother's, and in her absence I did as I wanted but with two prostitutes instead of four.

  We'd done the round of pubs in the City centre like a thousand others on a Saturday night: (I hated Saturday nights like workers hate Monday mornings) and finished in Heppy's.

  It had altered from a cabaret, if 'The Kalihari Bushmen' on the orange box stage could be called a cabaret, into a full blown disco, with Frank Hepworth, the owner, wearing a white jacket as though he was a dentist's assistant running backwards and forwards to the safe with the takings. It was more jam packed then the club I'd been in with Del the night I'd taken Anita to Blackpool, hardly enough space to breath. It seemed the in thing to stand because the few chairs still in the place were unoccupied.

  'He's there, look, the dirty little bastard' Elaine hissed in my ear the minute we were seated.

  'The bastard wants topping, he wants his bollocks ripping off.'

  She'd been going on like this since we'd been in 'The Wine Lodge' two hours ago and seen a small fair-haired kid going to the toilet. She'd said more than once he'd been interfering with her mate's 8-year-old daughter in the fields behind Pinderfields hospital. He hadn't been arrested though and the little girl hadn't had any signs she'd been tampered with. When I'd queried her statement she'd jumped down my throat.

  'Listen, when I was eight I'd know if I'd been tampered with or not, and she said she had. That's good enough for me.'

  From experience I knew little girls had vivid imaginations and I also knew sex cases usually started with bicycle seats and ended with murder, but in this case who could tell what the truth was? I was in my own town and the last thing I wanted was trouble with anybody, I had enough with Mick's ear. It wasn't the first time either she'd tried to get me to give somebody a belt. We'd been sitting in 'The Wine Lodge' weeks earlier when a young feller on his way to the toilet had called over to me. She chipped in straight away to tell me he'd been sleeping with Pauline and bragging about it while I'd been in Durham. I didn't know the feller from Adam but without a second's thought I'd followed him into the toilet and flattened him w
ith a whack in the ribs. Afterwards I'd asked myself why? For taking the piss I'd answered. But he's entitled to take the piss married to a slag like her. I'd told Elaine in no uncertain manner I didn't want to know of anything at all, anything, no matter what, where the only solution would be having to belt someone. I'd stressed it to her and now here she was doing it again.

  Supposing the feller had tampered with her mate's 8-year-old daughter and got away with it and then in another year he murdered a

  chil?. It was a possibility however slim. If it happened and I hadn't done anything tonight I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I'd had the chance, I'd be saying, and I was too scared of the consequences. Besides, a good belt might just be the deterrent needed to prevent it happening.

  The music was a constant row reverberating between my ears and making logical thought impossible. People were pushing, jostling, yelling to be heard all around us but Elaine was too absorbed to notice for convincing me the feller wanted castrating. He came before us as if on cue and turned in the door to the gents '.

  Thirty seconds later I seated myself next to Elaine feeling riddled with guilt. The feller, when I'd left him, had been curled in a ball in the corner of the toilet after receiving a crippling punch in his lower ribs. It was the look on his face, the feel of him, the general air of the feller that screamed he wasn't a sex case and Elaine had been doing nothing more than going at the mix with a big wooden spoon.

  'I hope you crippled the bastard,' she said gleefully. 'I hope the bastard dies. '

  'Shut up, I don't want to know,' I said, 'and don't tell me anything again.'

  He hadn't come from the toilet yet but I'd really hit him, hit him harder then I'd intended. It wouldn't trouble me in the least normally but I'd bet my life he was innocent. If the police came to investigate and it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility, I'd be locked up for a unprovoked attack on an innocent citizen. Dawson would throw a party and my feet wouldn't touch. Everything would be over, no licence, no boxing and I'd be an old man before I regained my freedom.