Sweet Agony

by Paul Sykes

  first morning I'd seen her walking past the house. I was wearing my usual attire, a three-piece pin-stripe suit and trying to portray a rugger-playing barrister image; I had different suits for a different occasions but all three-piece pin-stripes. I worked in one, I played in one. I liked suits and so did Cath.

  We were sitting down the side: the 'Wine Lodge' is a long narrow room with the toilets at the far end about 30 yards from the front door. Almost everybody pays a visit to the toilets simply to see who's in. Sitting where we were allowed us to see everybody who came and went and on Saturday night it had to be in the thousands. Suddenly there's a gang of young lads sitting in a half-circle before us and all firing questions and making requests at the same time and totally ignoring Cath.

  The upshot of it was they wanted me to turn out for the Manor rugby team in the morning against Sharlston at Sharlston.

  Sharlston is a tough mining community between Wakefield and Pontefract with a reputation for hard dirty play and being unbeatable on their own pitch. These lads brought me up to date, begged and pleaded for me to turn out to add size and weight to the team. The kick-off was at 10.30 on the pitch behind the Sharlston Hotel. I agreed to be there providing I was allowed to play in my old position, No. 13, loose-forward.

  'Reight Paul,' they called, 'See yer in t' morning.' They left to tour the pubs as though they'd been part of a successful military coup.

  The Manor was the local team composed of lads now who'd only been toddlers when I'd first gone in the nick but they all knew I could play from their dads, uncles, and elder brothers.

  I'd been captain of all the school teams and played for the City boys but that was long ago now and I'd not played in a serious game for years and years.

  The pathetic performance of the lads who'd been playing when I'd been waiting for Cath to come from school had given me the itch for a game and also I'd not been training. A game of rugby would do me good but more than that, if 1 put on a good show these lads would want to come and watch me after Christmas when 1 started boxing.

  'I suppose we'll be going home early,' Cath sighed.

  She knew me well enough by now to resign herself to an early night where sport was concerned. She'd been having early nights

  practically since we'd been to Rhyl. The excuse I'd been using now was I needed a clear head and all my wits about me to work in the morning. Tonight I'd said we'd go to Heppy's and she'd been really looking forward to going but I preferred her home anyway. She was only 15 and needed early nights. She'd argued a few times but I'd been adamant.

  'You might be a night person Cath, but I'm not, and besides I want you to grow,' I'd said.

  'Are we going home early or not?' she asked again.

  'Do you want me to make a fool of myself tomorrow by falling asleep halfway through the match. I need a good night's sleep, an old feller like me, to keep up with young lads like them.'

  She flashed her eyes and shuffled closer. She pressed the glass to her chin and said sexily, 'You leave young lads for dead.' She grinned and pressed her thigh against mine.

  * * * *

  Our team stripped in a bare brick room without any heating. They were all thin, wiry lads and it wasn't hard to see why I'd been asked to play, I had to be 3 stone heavier than the biggest and at least 12 years older. They had the determined air about them of a do or die effort and I was pleased I'd been press-ganged.

  It was a perfect morning for rugby, overcast, still, and although the pitch had half the grass missing, it was level and had just the right amount of grip.

  All around the pitch standing on the touchline were family groups, some had even brought their dogs on leads. They added yelps and barks to the volume of cheers as Sharlston emerged from the dressing room. A few of them looked well muscled and fit but most had bellies built on Tetley's stretching their black and white hooped jerseys. They glowered and glared basking in the shouts of support coming in waves from the touchlines and doing all they could to put the wind up our lads. It was our kick-off.

  A long high ball and our lads were off like whippets in obviously a

  well-practised move. They left me for dead. A short, black-haired kid

  caught the ball on the bounce and made 10 yards dodging and ducking until he was flattened. He had to be injured, but no, up he got and

  played the ball. Doing what I'd always done I caught the ball from

  the acting half-back at full belt, went between two players and scored. I couldn't believe it. The try was converted with a stupendous kick by a tall skinny kid with legs like spaghetti. I couldn't believe that either.

  'We'll show these nar,' the scrum-half shouted with glorious abandon punching the sky with a fist as we walked back to the middle for the re-start. A try and a conversion in front after two minutes and the lads fought like Jack Russells to keep it that way but slowly Sharlston's extra weight began to tell.

  Like runaway beer barrels they crashed time and time again into our lads in the hope they'd knock the spirit out of them. They levelled the scores but our lads were tenacious and fit and with 5 minutes of the first half remaining the ball from a scrum, only the second we'd won, found the right-wingman. He scorched 40 yards, leaving the Sharlston backs in his sparks to score a try in the corner. Spaghetti-legs hit the upright with the kick and instantly dropped to his knees with his face in his hands. These lads were playing as if their lives depended on winning and I couldn't help but think of Peter, the Central Area heavyweight champion drawing £600 at Liverpool Stadium.

  We held the lead until Sharlston, after some tricky interpassing, levelled the scores 10 minutes into the second half with a try 5 yards to the left of the posts. The crowds on the touchline and our team standing behind the posts were silent as the kicker lined up the ball for the conversion. Even the dogs were holding their breath. He measured his run and stood for a minute eyeing the ball and the posts, composing himself for the kick. If he kicks this, and it looks a dead certainty he will, it will be the end of our team. The thought sickened me.

  The ball went flying towards the corner flag, sliced and low. The home supporters erupted with threats and derision. 'Yer gret tit,' some feller in a flat cap yelled while a little fat woman wearing a headscarf screamed, 'Thi dinners goin' t' dog, yer gret nelly.'

  It put heart into our team who were always ready to pounce on a loose ball, make the interception, take them on, but as 1'd been told our team just wasn't big enough.

  We'd been camped in our own 25 for what seemed like a week, everybody tackling like demons but not getting the ball, when there it

  was at my feet from a scrum. Scooping it up I bounced off their scrum-half and set off like a train. Bump, their stand-off went down from a hand-off and the field was clear between me and the posts. Over the half-way line and into the 25 when a pile of bodies flattened me like the little black-haired kid at the beginning. The ball had gone but my pass hadn't had any direction and I wasn't even sure I'd had any support. By the time I was free and standing upright we were in front again. The same little black-haired kid had caught the ball and scored under the posts. The team were bubbling with jubilation. Spaghetti-legs scored the goal almost putting the ball into orbit and that was the end of Sharlston. The winger scored again in the dying minutes to really rub it in and Spaghetti-legs kicked the goal.

  In the showers after the match, I saw Mick Riley, the team manager, selector, bottle washer and chairman of the Manor, a nephew of Molly, Burky's missus, and a feller I'd grown up with. Very probably the feller who'd told the lads to ask me to play in the first place, he asked if I'd come to the club on training nights to put the lads through their paces.

  'OK Mick. What time?'

  'We start at 7 o'clock, Tuesdays and Thursdays.'

  At 6 o'clock I remembered I hadn't told Cath I was going to the Manor so I called to let her know I wouldn't be down until later. There was another girl standing behind her when she opened the door looking at me over the top of Cath's head with the intensity
of a searchlight. Cath said they'd walk up and wait in the concert room until I'd finished.

  On the way I found myself following the two girls, locked together in conversation up Greaves Avenue, a route longer than necessary. I'd been lost in thoughts of what training would be best and still feeling the effects of the rugby game. My shoulder-girdle had ached with the battering it had taken and I'd hardly been able to carry the case, but it wasn't so bad now, when it dawned where we were.

  'Here Cath, why are we coming this way?'

  She glanced over her shoulder and said, 'So we don't pass Wendy's house,' and carried on talking.

  Naturally my curiosity was aroused. Maybe she didn’t 't want her parents to see she was with me and then realised she didn't even know me. Had she climbed from the bedroom window when she

  should be doing homework? There had to be a reason. Probably a sneaky underhand reason.

  For the first time 1 really looked at her, searching for a clue. She was very tall and looked a real scruff. She was a full head taller than Cath and she wore sandals, not platforms. White socks showed through the cracks. She had on cheap, light-blue jeans that were too short and had mud-stains on the flares and a brown leather bomber jacket with a ripped pocket. Her hair was thick, black, straight and cut short.

  'How tall are you Wendy?'

  'Five feet eleven,' she said, over her shoulder like Cath and sounding flustered. Her teeth were brilliant white and her eyes big, brown and the whites crystal clear.

  'Why didn't you want seeing from home?'

  'Me mam and dad don't like me knocking about with Cath.' She smiled self consciously and then turned to the front.

  It seemed everybody's parents were against Cath but her own, 1 thought walking along Broadway. If they knew of Cath's abortion 1 could understand their reasoning.

  They waited in the little concert room sitting at a table drinking orange juice without anybody taking the slightest bit of notice while I went in a room at the side with 30 young lads. Wendy had gone when 1 came out 40 minutes later. Cath said she had to be in at 7 o'clock and when 1 asked why, she said, 'I don't bloody know,' in her Reagan voice.

  It wouldn't pay to show much interest but Wendy had certainly caught my eye.

  About a week later I'd forgotten about her, when Cath asked if I'd mind if she came fly pitching with us. She'd help Cath rick-in. During the week when 1 wasn't working far from home and could get Cath back at the time she'd usually arrive home from school, I'd been taking her with me. We'd arrange it the night before and then she'd wait for me in the Acropolis coffee bar in town. Once I started to pitch she'd stand in front to help start a crowd. When I came to the price she'd look to see if anybody was going to buy. If nobody was she'd pull out a pound note and call 'I'll have it!' Usually others followed once the ice was broken and the ploy was called ricking-in. Cath hated it.

  Sometime during the day I'd ring the school secretary making out I was Cath's old feller to say she was suffering from stomach pains, vaguely referring to the abortion and thought it wise to keep her home. It prevented enquiries and her parents worrying. If Wendy came I couldn't cover for them both and if I tried the secretary might become suspicious and start enquiries about Cath. It wasn't worth taking the chance but it was too late now, I'd already told Cath she was welcome. The solution was simple. I'd tell Burky I'd got him a schoolie and tomorrow we'd work together. He could phone and pretend to be Wendy's old feller.

  Burky's thriftiness was only equalled by his unbounded pleasure when introducing nubile young girls to the joys of sex. It was another of the subjects we'd taken to bits in long discussions going up to Edinburgh to work the Sunday market. If half of what he told me was true he had more kinks than a Jamaican's hair.

  Molly was five years older and had the sex appeal of a school dinner-lady, he'd told me confidentially. He admired and respected her but when it came to sex the relationship was non-existent. He was always on the look out for wide-eyed innocent young girls to bend up. That's what he called it, his greatest passion was to bend up young birds so they were never the same again and according to him they loved it. He could bend up who he wanted as long as he didn't try it with Cath.

  'What's she like?' he asked eagerly over the phone.

  'Tall, lovely teeth, and sounds as daft as a brush.'

  'Right see you tomorrow nine o'clock in the 'Acropolis'. We'll use my car.'

  He had a Volkswagon for two reasons. The first one being it cost almost nothing to run and the second because it was small and a girl in the passenger seat was practically on top of him. She couldn't move. He had legs like tree trunks and a back like a billboard. He weighed 17st and stood 6 feet.

  Cath was sitting in the corner at the side of me on the back seat and watching Burky like a tracker dog. He was using everything but his fists to get inside Wendy's clothing. Wendy gasped and struggled and sounded to me as if any second she would burst into tears. I expected Cath to say something in Wendy's defence and if she did I'd contribute something myself, but she didn't say a word all day. We'd

  been to Malton then York, but it had rained all day preventing us from even trying to work, apart from Wendy, fending off Burky's advances.

  It's you she wants,' Burky said that night, 'she didn't take her eyes off you all day.'

  It was food for thought. Lovely as Cath was she wasn't a school-girl regardless of her age. The way she came alive the longer the night wore on. The way she handled alcohol and smoked, and recently she had developed the habit of refusing to leave the car when I took her home until I'd made love to her. Not the normal behaviour of a 15-year-old schoolgirl to my way of thinking. She also had a pile of tissues in the glove compartment which she used to wipe herself when we'd finished. Nothing wrong with that, it showed she was thinking ahead and keeping herself clean, using her initiative, but the way she did it always shocked me. She would be laid back in the seat with her legs cocked up wiping herself like mothers do babies when they are changing a nappy and then she would examine the tissue critically. No modesty whatsoever. Every night we made love I'd watch her afterwards. I'd be back in my seat properly dressed and she would still be laid back going through the ritual.

  'Have you no shame?' I asked one night when she was taking longer than usual. She didn't answer but she did one night when I'd complained that I was too tired to make love; I'd had a hard day and wanted to get home to bed and then I'd relented and done as she'd wanted. 'I don't want you dropping me off,' she'd said, looking me in the eye, ' and then going to Heppy's to get your end away.'

  She smiled. Her eyes were like grappling-hooks.

  What kind of opinion did she have of me with a statement like that? Obviously she thought sex was a drug to me, an addictive drug, where I had to have a daily fix and if it wasn't with her it would be with another. It also showed the first signs of mistrust and jealousy and I recalled my thoughts of when I'd been in the nick, my thoughts of the night I'd met Anita in the club and the promise I'd made myself. If she didn't trust me after all I'd said and done now I'd been wasting my time.

  A week later she asked if Wendy could come again, the following Tuesday. Maybe they both wanted to miss the same lessons and I'd agreed. Burky didn't want to know, said it was a waste of time but

  promised to ring the school on Wendy's behalf. It was a miserable day, a wind with the edge of a bread knife and freezing cold drizzly showers. It didn't matter where I worked on a day like this I'd be lucky to take a fiver. Hemsworth market was the Alaskan tundra and South Elmsall the same. We were sitting in the car listening to Frankie Valley tapes with the heater blowing. It was warm and cosy drinking tea from plastic cups and killing time until I could take them home. Around dinner time the sun broke through and people came onto the market from the shops and tiny factories for a look round during their break, not many but enough to cover my expenses.

  'Come and rick-in for me Cath.'

  'No, not today it's a waste of time today. Anyway it's too bloody cold.' Before
the abortion she had never refused.

  'Well I'm having a go, we'll get nowt sitting here.'

  The case was on the floor and I'd just slammed the boot lid when

  Wendy emerged from the car.

  'I'll come with you,' she gave a radiant smile with teeth so dazzlingly bright they lit up the whole market. 'Just tell me what to do.'

  'Stand in front of me and listen to what I've got to say,' I explained going through the market, 'and when I ask for a pound go in your purse and give me one.'

  'I haven't got a pound. I haven't got a purse either,' she said hopelessly.

  'Here.' I gave her one. 'Put it in your pocket and just listen.'

  Standing in the main thoroughfare I started to pitch. The few shop-pers remaining on the market hurried past without giving me a glance. I'd no chance of taking even a fiver it was so cold. Wendy was standing a couple of yards in front trying to look interested despite shivering, her lips turning blue.

  Burky's words were burning in my brain, 'It's you she wants.'

  They were bouncing through Cath's abortion, the way she behaved now, her attitude, the way her parents didn't care what hours she kept. The way she loved being fucked. She wasn't the innocent young girl but as old as the hills. I loved her but not with the same single-minded devotion I'd had before the abortion and Wendy's presence brought it home.

  I knew nothing about girls their age but faded memories of the