Sweet Agony

by Paul Sykes

  It was the same two magistrates and the coppers had put on a show to impress them. They were everywhere, with six in a line across the door to the corridor. It wasn't the thought I might try to escape but to show how dangerous they thought I was when they produced their

  star witness, Elaine. I was such a madman I would very likely jump out of the box, rush across the court and murder her before she could speak. Not only were coppers evil and stupid but wasted taxpayer's money without a qualm. Which in my book is stealing.

  The six across the door, from the way they were yawning and scratching their ribs, were the night shift nicking a few hours overtime before they went home. There wasn't a cat-in-hells chance I'd pay tax when I started boxing I thought, watching 20 of them lounging around the court and trying not to look conspicuous.

  Elaine loved it until Mr Healey got a grip of her with a string of penetrating questions that had her pounding the dock with clenched fists and glaring at the magistrates defiantly.

  'She's a little slag' she cried,' A little schoolgirl slag.'

  She paused, suddenly aware she'd given the game away.

  'In Heppy's at her age,' she added quietly.

  The Magistrates gave me bail on two sureties of £200 each, the old feller and Tommys mate, Burt Corris again, without even retiring. The copper who'd objected to bail threw down the case papers in disgust and stormed from the court. Five minutes later I followed with the old feller.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was the first time I'd been round the back of Cath's school although when I'd been going across to Norm's I'd passed the front plenty of times. It didn't look much from the front but from the short dead end road where she'd told me to park it was a right eyeful. There were 3 full-sized rugby pitches, a soccer pitch and acres devoted to girls' games.

  This school had been built during the years I'd been in the nick to replace St Austin's, an ancient school on the market that traders used now for a warehouse, and a school which had had a maximum of 60 pupils. This school, Thomas á Becket, had a thousand pupils. If this was their team who were practising rugby I'd have my money on the old St Austin's team to beat them every time. The way they cringed and shut their eyes when they had the ball and waited to be tackled instead of having a go with a bit of grit and determination made me sick. They'd have been in the choir if I'd my way, with the vicar and the scout-master.

  Cath came pounding across the playground with her big hessian schoolbag with 'Made in San Quention' printed on the side bumping against her knees and her big breasts joggling under her grey pullover. If the lads playing rugby ran with the same determination they'd score a try every time.

  We made love on the Lupset municipal golf course car-park like we'd eat a cooked meal after a month on bread and water.

  'Oh Paul,' she breathed in my ear, 'You don't know how much I've missed you.'

  Since we'd been lovers I'd had a remarkable run of luck. We'd stayed in the best hotels and eaten in the best restaurants everywhere we'd been and if ever I wanted a bit of luck it was now. I had a tenner the old feller lent me.

  That night she came with me to Doncaster to see Norm's mate, Sam, the feller whom I'd got the snide jewellery from, and waited in the car while I asked for some credit.

  Norm said Sam was the wealthiest feller he knew. Not stocks and shares and assets but pound notes and gold. Sam could pull up a hundred grand in readies any time according to Norm.

  He had at least £100 grand in Crown Derby hanging in the kitchen. And I'd seen that myself.

  Sam was a domiciled travelling man who lived in a six-bedroomed farmhouse, painted white, on 20 acres of land. The nearest he came to travelling these days was making traditional bow-topped caravans under the roof at the back of his yard. He had horses in the fields. There was always a dead cockerel or two lying about, and in the corner of the yard he'd turned a little cottage into an Olde Worlde drinking club which other travellers used when they came to pay their respects and to do a deal. Sam loved a deal.

  He was a big heavy feller with a shock of blond hair and a big red face. Dressed in a red frock coat he would be the archetypal John Bull.

  He tried to palm me off with snide horse-dealer's boots and Doc Martins made from Corfam. If I hadn't been potless I'd have had a go but as I explained I needed some money quickly. After half an hour of haggling and insults he let me have his very last gents ID and to pay him next time I came through. It was a beauty, well dipped and perfectly ramped. Going home we called in 'The Globe', a Tetley pub at the bottom of Westgate, and left after twenty minutes with a gate bracelet with a sovereign in a big chunky mount. It was the landlord's wife's, the feller did me a straight swop, unable to concentrate on the deal for watching Cath, demurely sipping a glass of bitter.

  Cath was worth her weight in gold.

  Mother didn't think so, she'd told me she was a sly conniving crafty little swine, who'd cause trouble in an empty house.

  She'd told me weeks ago when she'd first twigged we were lovers and she'd hardly spoken to me since.

  'I've known her all her life,' she'd said one night, 'and I know you as well. Don't think you can kid me. I know you've been seeing her since our Kay's gymkhana, so don't deny it. I heard what she said when she was sitting in the little van taking the entrance fees. She didn't know I could hear, the little tow rag.'

  'What did she say Mam?' I'd wanted to know. We hadn't been lovers then.

  Mother had a mouthful of tea and continued. 'One of our Kay's mates asked her about her brother. She hadn't known our Kay had a brother with you always being in the nick. She said "I wouldn't mind his slippers under my bed", the little bag.'

  She didn't have the needle with me so much as she had it with Cath so when I reached home I told her what had happened with the bracelet, stressing Cath' s part, and gave her it as a peace offering. She didn't even look at it but slipped into the bedroom to put it somewhere safe without a please, thank you, or kiss me arse. Mother's intuition couldn't be bought with a bit of jewellery.

  The old feller had a go at me too, after Mother had told him. He shouted and bawled about Cath being a little slag since she'd been twelve and reeled off all the lads' names he'd seen her with up the side of Snapethorpe hospital. He wasn't telling me anything I didn't already know.

  It made no difference to my feelings but I did wish they'd try and understand instead of being so bloody-minded and stubborn. Their attitude had me beat. One minute I have their full backing to spend the night with Elaine, a married woman with a daughter, and the next they're playing hell about Cath and the fact she was under age doesn't get a mention. To top it off the car I'd got from Mick, the Vauxhall Viscount, packed up, just dropped dead the next morning. Old Phil Swaine scrapped it. He gave me £15 and towed it off to his yard.

  I was flat skint apart from that and didn’t know where the next penny would come from.

  A few days later I'm walking through the Bull Ring when I bumped into Paul Burke, a feller a couple of years younger than me and a stone or two heavier. He owned all the hot dog barrows in the town centre and had served 15 months for posing as a bogus official. It's all I knew about him really, but he knew even less about me, or so I'd thought until he told me he'd heard about Elaine and the turkeys. He wanted to know what I was doing for a living and I told him I was seriously thinking of robbing a bank.

  'Listen,' he said, 'Scrape yourself a few quid together and I'll show you a game where you'll earn fortunes. So much money you won't believe it.' He grinned, a grin so evil he could have had horns growing from the top of his head.

  Every prison is full of fly boys with get rich quick schemes and there wasn't any I didn't already know but anything had to be better than crying, 'Stick 'em up.'

  'Oh yeah,' I said sceptically, 'and what game's that?'

  'Fly pitching. You've worked the mock auctions so you must have heard of it.'

  'Yeah, I've heard of it, but there's no money in it.'

  'That's what you think.' He said q
uickly. 'Scrape a few quid

  together and I'll pick you up on Sunday morning and we'll go through to Manchester and have a look round the warehouses. Straight, from now until Christmas they'll be queueing up to throw their money at you. '

  'You're not getting me at it?'

  'You won't believe what it's like,' he answered sincerely.

  The money involved in mock auctions is fabulous if you know how to work. If I could earn a half of what I'd earned over 4 years ago I'd be more than happy.

  Kay lent me some money but Mother wouldn't. She said all her money was needed for the warehouse but I suspected it was another of her little digs about me going with Cath. Fortunately the old feller had backed a few winners on the Saturday and couldn't lend me his winnings quick enough. A week later I paid them back and had enough to go back to the warehouse without having to borrow a penny and the week after that I thought I might have a mention in the financial pages of 'The Sunday Times.' Of all the ways I'd tried to make money this was the best and I took to it like a duck takes to water.

  Burky had taken me to a warehouse not 50 yards from the gates of Strangeways nick. After he'd pointed out the cell where he'd spent 9 months we'd gone in and asked to see what they had, to work for a pound.' We'd bought old pennies on chains, halfpennies, and ingots, and then we'd gone to Bradford to buy some perfume. I'd expected to go to another warehouse but we'd pulled up outside a private house with a large garage at the side, only it wasn't a garage but a perfume factory.

  Burky and the owner greeted each other like lost brothers, and then

  we went inside to wait until the order was made up.

  It was a scene from a Dickens novel.

  'Right,' Charlie called, a dead ringer for Fagin with his big hooked nose. All he had missing was the fingerless gloves. He clapped his hands.

  A dozen school kids came to attention.

  'Right,' Charlie repeated and then clapped his hands and called 'Twennyfourtwennyninessamespecialsanoncemorewhispers.’

  The kids, evidently used to the language set to with the speed and efficiency of experienced piece workers. Two young lads filled three different sized bottles from the same 45-gallon oil drum, while girls labelled the bottles, while others folded cardboard into cartons to put them in. Others hurried from one lot to the next carrying the order and twenty minutes later we were on our way with the order complete. Six hundred bottles of different sizes in fancy boxes.

  It was slave labour; the kids were only paid 7p an hour, but Burky didn't agree. He argued the kids were better off earning 7p than sniffing glue at school, and besides some of them were earning as much as £8 a week and they were necessary to keep the cost down so the likes of us could earn a living and perfume was vital. Charlie gave his customers a 4-page brochure which made fly pitching as easy as falling out of bed.

  'You just pass it round,' Burky explained, 'pointing out the recommended price; people will believe anything if it's in print, and tell 'em the price you're charging, plus they're getting two other bits. It's simple. Keep your eye on the brochure though. They cost four grand to have made up.'

  The first two weeks I worked the perfume along with a penny and an ingot but I didn't like it. I couldn't stop thinking of Charlie exploiting the kids, and besides the stuff smelled lousy. Once I'd sold it all I didn't go again.

  When I'd got into the hang of it and what I could and couldn't sell, I had a look round Manchester and found half a dozen warehouses that sold cheap jewellery, not lumps of crap. It was simple really if you had the gift of the gab and I had. I didn't need Charlie's brochure. Selling was in my blood. I came from good stock when it came to selling and exploiting schoolkids wasn't in my line at all.

  The old feller was very pleased I'd found a game I really enjoyed

  and volunteered to help when I'd explained how the job worked. It

  was simple really, all I needed were people, plenty of people and

  somewhere to go if the coppers told me to move. He found a copy of an AA handbook in one of Mother's drawers and worked out a list of towns, market days, populations, all close together, which was vital. They had to be close so if the coppers moved me on I wasn't spending time in the car when I could be taking money. And money came like Burky said it would and in no time I'd bought another big motor, another Vauxhall. A Cresta, with a genuine 19,000 on the clock, and in mint condition. Life had never been better; Burky had worked a miracle! Until one night I went to the school to collect Cath.

  It was mid-week when everybody had done their shopping before dinner, leaving the streets practically deserted. I'd gone home and sat about the house for a while then decided to collect Cath from school. It was the first time I'd been since the day I'd been granted bail in case anybody became suspicious. I didn't want the other kids asking her awkward questions and there was always the chance I could be recognised.

  She was one of the first through the gates walking on her own and looking preoccupied as though she'd been given a bad report. She didn't look pleased to see me at all. She seated herself in the passenger seat without a word until we were clear of the school and then she said quietly, still without looking at me.

  'I've got to go to the doctor's.'

  I'd been telling her if anybody asked to say I was her uncle, where I'd been, how much I'd taken. Anything to cheer her up.

  'The doctor's Cath. What for?'

  'I think I'm pregnant,' she answered, still in the same subdued tone.

  'But you told me you were on the pill.'

  'lam.'

  Thoughts came and went like flash bulbs exploding. We'd made

  love enough to populate China but she'd said almost as far back as Rhyl she was on the pill.

  Pills were infallible, or were they? No, I'd heard or read about women becoming pregnant who were on the pill. I didn't want her to have a baby, no way did I want her to have a baby, it would fuck everything up. All the plans I'd been making for when she left school. It would mean getting married, finding a house, responsibility. Anyway she wasn't big enough to have a baby, especially my

  baby. It would ruin her. She was too young to have a baby. She'd be stuck at home bringing it up and missing out. Missing out on everything. The way things were going it didn't matter if I boxed or not, I was earning enough to give her anything she wanted. Trips abroad, world cruises, but a baby could stop it all. She'd have to get rid of it. She'd have to have an abortion.

  'Which doctor's is it Cath?' We were approaching town now.

  'The ones on Southgate opposite the Mecca.'

  We were crossing Kirkgate bridge being careful to manoeuvre into the correct lane for Ings Road.

  'How far are you gone Cath?' I asked, thinking she might be mistaken. Girls her age hadn't really settled into regular periods. Kay hadn't yet and she was older than Cath. There were murders when she was having her periods, screaming, shouting, throwing things. When I'd asked Mother what was wrong she'd explained. Maybe Cath was mistaken, panicking and worrying without any real reason.

  'How far are you gone Cath?' I repeated.

  'How the bloody hell do I know until I've seen the doctor,' she cried angrily, just like Kay did.

  'All right, all right, I only asked.'

  She smiled, or tried to.

  'I'm sorry love. I don't know if I'm coming or going.'

  Yes, she sounded just like Kay. She was mistaken that's all.

  All the love-making had knocked her metabolism haywire before

  it had time to settle down.

  She was in the surgery while I waited across the road looking at the clothes in a tailor's shop, lovats and browns, miserable colours like the mood I was in. I'd been waiting five minutes when the vicar who'd arranged the visit with Pauline, the time she'd brought the carving knife, came up the road. He was with another vicar. It was all I wanted, a nice friendly chat with a nick vicar to bring back all the pungent memories of Pauline.

  'Hello Paul.' He smiled and turned on the big pink hearing-aid cl
ipped to the side of his head.

  'Hello Padre, nice to see you.' I tried to sound pleasant.

  ‘Are you at Wakefield prison now?'

  'No, no. My friend is though.' He indicated who his friend was with

  a flourish. The other vicar gave me a well practised, gormless smile.

  'Pleased to meet you,' I said and nodded.

  They both stood with silly grins stumped for something to say.

  had to help them out, it was embarrassing.

  'I was just having a look at the clothes for a new suit Padre. A nice lovat with a shawl collar and flaps on the pocket 1 fancy. Impress the old birds in the Wine Lodge no end don't you think?'

  'Yes, yes, I'm sure it would Paul,' he said hurriedly. 'Must be going I'm afraid. Duty calls.'

  He hadn't gone five steps before he switched the hearing-aid off again. It didn't say a lot for the Vicar of Wake field. Mind you if all he did was grin like a congenital idiot he'd only be wasting his battery.

  Cath came from the surgery a minute or two after they'd gone with her bewitching elfin face set like concrete. She came across the road and joined me as I walked towards the corner. From her face it had to be bad news.

  'What did he say?'

  'I'm twenty weeks,' she murmured.

  'But that's five months. We'd not been to Rhyl .. .'

  'I know, it's not your's,' she said quickly.

  My senses reeled and a black sheet dropped before my eyes as though I'd been hit on the head and thrown down the cellar steps. I could feel something live and tangible shrivel and die. 1 could feel myself walking away and leaving a shell by her side. A shell that looked like me but 1 wasn't inside. An empty shell of myself.

  She was speaking, her words coming through dense clouds, echoes of Mother's words, the old feller's words, all jumbled together. Suddenly I was angry, not with her or anybody else. 1 was angry at myself for being hurt, for allowing myself to let it happen.