Sweet Agony

by Paul Sykes

  'Go and ring Wood Street', I whispered in her ear, and say if they come quickly to the Swan they'll catch me and my mates smoking dope.' I'd bet my life I'd have the elephant holding what I had left when the police came bursting in.

  She couldn't move, nailed to her seat with a stupid grin on her face. Little Taff was halfway through some eisteddfod and his fat pal was wriggling like a vibrator.

  'What do you think then Taff. Is it good stuff?'

  He climbed from the rostrum and said, 'Very nice, very nice.' Dreamily he added, 'Yes boyo, indeed it is.'

  'Never mind that,' cried the elephant, who'd had his belly-full. 'Come on let's be off. We've a lot to do.' He half dragged him from the pub leaving their beer.

  Half an hour later I'm sitting in the driver's seat of my car on the lehovah's Witness church car park with my trousers round my ankles and Elaine holding my rigid dick as though she was crooning into a microphone. A minute ago I hadn't been here but now the effects of the bush were rapidly wearing off, or so I thought until I almost begged Elaine to take her knickers off.

  'No Paul. I can't let you, so don't ask again.' She was very pleased with herself.

  Five minutes later I dropped her outside St Michael's flats. As she crossed the road I hoped she would be the Ripper's next victim.

  * * * *

  Cath had reluctantly acknowledged the fact I was seeing Wendy by this time although she positively hated the thought. She would scowl and glower and lay down the law about me coming and going and question me relentlessly about where I'd been.

  'With the lads,' I'd say. 'Trying to get a few quid.'

  The money Manny had given me at the Tower had been spent and Cath had the cheque every week to keep the house. If I wanted anything I had to go out and get it. She accepted this and said I'd never alter, inferring I'd be in the nick if I didn't pull myself together. From the way she was treating me I often thought I already was.

  One morning I came home just in time for breakfast after spending all night with a bird on Peacock estate, three doors from Mick and Janet. I'd waved to Janet as she was hanging the washing out on my way home to let her know. On entering the house Cath immediately accused me of going with another woman. It couldn't be Wendy, coming home at this time. I gave her the standard excuse, which she appeared to accept and then suggested we go upstairs. She was twice the size now as she was when we'd been in the double 'O' but overcame the problem by climbing on top. She watched my face like a mongoose watches a snake and the instant I came she leapt off with a nimbleness belying her condition and grabbed my dick and squeezed.

  'You liar,' she screamed. 'You fucking liar.'

  I was dumbfounded, didn't know what she was on about until she'd pointed out I'd only come half a teaspoonful.

  'But Cath I'm not training am I?' I pleaded.

  'You weren't training last year either.' Her nostrils were flared, little hands clenched into fists and her face pale.

  'When you were fly-pitching you came four times that much. You big lying bastard.'

  'Yeah Cath, I know,' I pleaded, knowing now why she had examined the tissue so critically in the car before I'd dropped her off and thinking Sherlock Holmes had fuck-all on her.

  'But I wasn't boozing and worrying like I am now.'

  'Worrying. You. Fuck off, you liar.'

  For two days I stayed in and played the caring husband.

  A week later Roger Greenwood from YTV invited me to attend

  Eddie Grey's testimonial dinner at the 'Dragonara Hotel', Leeds. Men only and evening dress. I accepted with alacrity, proud to attend. Eddie Grey was one of the trickiest footballers in the league and I'd seen him at my fights plenty of times. Frank Bough had given a speech I fancied he'd recited 500 times before but just changed the names and Ted Moult had the guests laughing politely for half an hour when I heard my name being called.

  'Mr Paul Sykes wanted on the telephone.' It was a page walking round the tables calling it repeatedly and bringing the entire proceedings to a halt. All eyes were on me as I left to answer.

  'Just seeing if you were there, you big liar,' Cath sneered and then slammed the phone back.

  The house became a prison, a luxury prison and Cath was a screw. I'd sit on the settee knowing I should be the happiest man on earth and proud of what I'd achieved but I'd never been more depressed in my life, not even in a choky block with years of a sentence still to do. All I wanted was to get drunk and escape. I drifted in an alcoholic haze from one day to the next, and when Cath gave birth it was another excuse to get sloshed.

  We were lying in bed drinking the second pot of tea I'd made and listening to Terry Wogan on Radio Two when she got up to go the toilet. Instead of walking round the bed she stood up to stride over me and as she did her waters broke. Less than an hour later she was in the delivery room in Manygates maternity hospital and I was sitting in the waiting-room with Bob sitting by my side. He bet me a fiver she would have a girl. Before ten o'clock I'd claimed it and seen my baby son. He had a line an inch wide of black hair from the back of his neck to his lovely little miniature bum. It was the only thing I could remember about him, I told Teresa at dinner-time. Eddie and me emptied a full bottle of Glenfiddich during the afternoon in my home celebrating the birth of his first grandchild. When I went to see

  Cath that night I made her sit in the chair at the side of the bed while I climbed upon it and fell asleep.

  Wendy had waited in the car while I'd visited and I was sure Cath knew. I didn't miss a visit afternoon or night because I fancied she hated me. She was sick to the back teeth of me. When she came out of hospital she went to live at her Mother's, 'Just until Adam is a bit stronger,' she said, but in my opinion it had nothing to do with Adam's strength but her own.

  One night, shortly after Cath had gone to her mother's, I'm sitting in the house watching the telly. Wendy was sitting in the chair by the stereo. There was a loud knock on the front door. It could be anybody, Del, Ron, Norm, Davy, there was always somebody coming.

  It was Wendy's old feller, and standing behind was Cath with a triumphant smile.

  'I believe my daughter's here.' He sounded no different to when he'd been in the 'Smith's Arms'.

  'Yes, that's right. Come in.' Let him see how the other half lived and how much his daughter looked at home.

  Cath wouldn't come in and stayed on the step.

  Wendy turned pale and sat like a statue. If he laid a hand on her he was in trouble.

  'Well, what have you to say now?'

  She didn't answer, or take her eyes from the telly. Wendy, this is it

  I thought. Stamp your foot and tell him you're staying. Tell Cath you've taken over. Tell them. Go on, go on, tell 'em.

  It was as if I didn't exist sitting on the settee in my own home. Both totally ignored me.

  'I'm giving you a choice,' he said in his infuriating plod of a voice. It's armchair theatre, I thought, live in the front room.

  'You can stay here or you can come home. If you stay here you have nothing more to do with us at all. Nothing, is that clear?'

  Without a glance in my direction she went to fetch her coat and then disappeared through the front door into the darkness followed by her old feller, too conditioned to think for herself or too frightened. Cath must have been given a lift because I didn't see her again that night or again for two weeks, and then she came back to live.

  During the time she'd been away I'd been in a state of almost permanent intoxication, sloshed, and I'd hardly noticed her absence. It

  was peculiar how booze affected me. I didn't wobble, slur my speech, cry, laugh, or do any of the things people usually do under the influence, and to say I'd never really boozed in my life before, I had a remarkable ability to consume it by the bucketful. It numbed my senses and brought a blissful state of relief.

  With Cath and baby Adam back at home and Christmas only days away it was time now I made an effort I told myself, and got a grip. Waking like an old man and feeling rotten wasn'
t for me, and besides, I didn't have a penny.

  Burky wasn't working the suitcase this year, he said it wasn't worth the aggro, and I thought, no, I wouldn't work either if I'd made a fortune with the necklaces. He gave me what stock he had left, and with what I had it was enough to take £200. The suitcase had been my saviour last year (God, it seemed a lifetime ago) and it would pull me out of the shit again I thought, on my way to Lincoln.

  No policemen, a clean wide precinct, and plenty of people. It was the first time I'd worked in Lincoln and I'd chosen it specially because it didn't come into the YTV area, and the first pitch looked like being a 'burster.' The crowd was 40 strong at least and more were joining by the minute. My tongue had lost its rustiness and for the first time in months I was happy.

  'Never mind twenty, ten or even five. I can serve a few people and a few people only. It's first come first served, so put your hands into your pockets, purses, handbags, wherever you keep your money, and forget about about five, four or even three. Never mind thirty two pounds fifty in the shops. Not two or even one fifty. I'll take a pound the lot.' I clapped my hands to represent the gavel striking the block and was ready to accept their money when straight away a teenage lad came to my side and asked if I'd give him my autograph.

  My autograph, my fucking autograph, I thought, wishing I'd never seen a boxing ring.

  'I've seen you on the telly loads of times,' he explained as I looked into the sky for guidance. It was grey and overcast. The crowd had gone before I got myself under control enough to answer. I signed a paper bag he had a sandwich in and came home.

  Christmas came and went with nothing more exciting happening than spending eight hours in the police cells in Wood Street as a guest of Dawson. The old feller told me there was a warrant out for my arrest

  on Christmas Eve and for the next three days, until I could get in touch with a solicitor, I went into hiding. Diane, Burky and Wendy helped out. She wouldn't leave me and said she didn't give a hoot what her father would say. The day after Boxing Day I presented myself and found the crime was receiving and had nothing at all to do with me but I had to prove my innocence before he released me.

  It was the first time I'd been locked up since bail had been refused in the turkey trial and it brought me to my senses. I'd been sailing very close to the wind not caring about anything or anybody. Wallowing in self-pity like a big tart. Obviously it wasn't Dawson's intention to give me time to reflect but I did. I came home to little Cath and started training. It was the only way to have peace of mind, get some money straight, and keep the coppers off my back.

  With not being strong enough for the chapel, and all the booze to get out of my system, I started running. It wasn't as bad as I'd expected, as though my body was rejoicing it had something to do, but I didn't enjoy it, not at first. It was dark, patches of ice, crushed snow, frozen slush, and cold, freezing cold. It took me the length of Kingsway, about a mile, to warm up, catch my breath, and begin to take note of my surroundings. It would be just turned 6 o'clock by Os sett Town Hall clock when I passed but after ten days or so it would be later and later. It wasn't my fault but Adam's. He wanted feeding during the night. Cath would be fast asleep and I hadn't the heart to wake her, and besides I enjoyed feeding him. I'd walk up and down the bedroom afterwards telling him all my troubles while he got the wind up and then he would go back to sleep like a little angel and I'd wake later and later. It made no difference to my determination but I hated people standing at the bus stops seeing me labour up the long, long drag of Dewsbury Road. Adam's early morning feeding habit was only a phase, or maybe he had listened and was helping out, but for whatever reason he began to sleep through the night.

  I began passing the Town Hall at my preferred time and feeling much like myoid self. It was marvellous.

  I started going to the chapel, and providing the weather hadn't closed the M62 I'd go across to the gym in Manchester. I would be fighting soon: I had to, I'd almost subbed a grand and I couldn't imagine Manny paying me a penny more.

  Right on time he turned up at the house one night with Mcgill to tell me I would be fighting at the theatre club on 13th February against another Yank, another Yank from New Jersey. He wanted me to leave home and live with a pal of Mcgill's. Nobody could find the concentration necessary to get in condition to fight with a new baby in the house, and I'd enjoy myself with Mcgill's pal. He didn't know the favour he was doing me and I agreed without having to think.

  If anybody had said a year ago how I would be feeling like I did about Cath I'd have said they were into voodoo. She wasn't the same girl now she'd given birth. The abortion had changed her mentality and vocabulary, but the birth of Adam had changed her body. Her big solid tits now hung like socks on a clothes horse and were lined with livid purply-blue marks. Her arse had spread like a bed of red cabbage and round her waist there was a belt two inches wide the same colour.

  To see her undressed turned my stomach, but not just her figure caused revulsion but her personal scent. She reminded me of the butchers in Durham nick. It was as though she had forsaken her youth for Adam, and I thought it was her punishment for telling lies on her birthday. Now I was pulling round, I often thought our ages had been swopped. Wendy, however, was growing more lovely with each passing day. When I'd asked her why she hadn't stayed, or at least had it out with her dad, she'd said, 'I couldn't think,' which seemed perfectly reasonable to me. She would think next time, she said, and there had been no reprisals for staying with me over Christmas.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  If I went from Blackpool, north along the promenade to Fleetwood, crossed the river Wyre on the ferry and then walked a mile along the beach I came to the house where Dr Mcgill's pal lived. I didn't know that when I first went but after I'd been there a while I discovered the shortest route into Blackpool, and had the location firmly in my head.

  In a car I had to meander along narrow country roads, cross a rickety toll bridge, and then meander again for miles and miles along more country lanes until I came to the unmade private road. The first time I hadn't a clue where I was at all. It could have been another country because the weather was ten degrees warmer and there wasn't a sign winter had ever been in this part of the world. The house where Dr Mcgill's pal lived was a red brick dormer bungalow and easily the most impressive on the entire road; and they were all beautiful houses. If Mcgill's pal was a feller I liked I could very easily be happy living here I thought, as Mcgill knocked on the door and entered.

  'Now then Ginger, how yer feelin?' said Mcgill, his Dublin brogue at its most charming, to the stout elderly feller sitting on the settee and smothered to his waist with dogs. He had a plump, homely face, a plump, homely belly, a shiny bald head. They were all watching a cartoon on the telly and I liked him immediately.

  'Not so bad Ken. I'm feeling better then I've done for a while,' he answered, and then turned to me and smiled as if I was his long lost son. He struggled to his feet, gently pushing the dogs from his lap, murmuring endearments. 'Come on I'll show you your bedroom,' he said, leading the way like one of the Seven Dwarfs.

  The dogs, a drooping-backed whippet and two of the fattest black poodles I'd ever seen, trooped after him with me in the rear. The bedroom was equipped with a three-quarter bed and all mod cons. It was small, neat, and very cosy. From the window I could see a large expanse of lawn and two neatly dug vegetable plots. Beyond the

  fence at the bottom of the garden were miles and miles of fields, fawn-coloured with last year's grass.

  During the first week I went for a long run every morning. Many times I'd lose my way in lanes which all looked alike, and the fields without any real distinguishing features: and then I'd set off as the crow flies in the general direction of Ginger's, jumping ditches and hurdling fences suddenly ten years younger and enjoying myself.

  Twice Ginger took me to his local pub for dinner, 'The Black Bull,' in a tiny village called Pilling, and ordered the landlord to give me a plate of his shepherds pie with onio
n gravy. 'A nice big plate,' he said authoratively, 'my lad's a heavyweight not one of these little fellers. '

  We got on like a house on fire Ginger and me, never a wrong word. I did the cooking and he did the hoovering. It was as if I'd always lived here after a week, and at times I wished I had.

  Ginger's real name was Pat, but everybody had always called him Ginger, even his late wife, a woman whose memory he still obviously cherished. He'd been into most things, fly-pitching, mock auctions, wholesaling, even a bit of villainy, and as the years passed he slowly acquired enough money to buy a boarding-house in Blackpool. It had been his wife's lifetime ambition to own a boarding-house in Blackpool. He moved from his home town of Manchester and helped her until she died and then he sold up and moved out here. During the summer, 'just for a bit of interest you understand,' he still did a bit of wholesaling to quite a number of the lads who worked the holiday resorts. He'd been a friend of Jock Macavoy, 'The Rochdale Thunderbolt': he referred to him as Joe, 'Joe Bamford was his proper name you know,' and knew every trick in the book about fighting. He came with me to the gym a couple of times to watch me spar, assess my potential, and said afterwards I was as good as any heavyweight he'd seen.

  He listened to my troubles with Wendy and Cath without a word and when I'd finished he said if it would help why didn't I live with him after the fight until things were sorted out? He knew I had some women problems because Mcgill had told him, but he hadn't realised how deep they went. He was lonely on his own and I cheered him up. It seemed the solution, but I'd see how things went after the fight before I made a decision.

  On the Saturday before the fight, Mcgill came to see how fit I was. He came with me in his fancy tracksuit for a run along the sea bank. Near where the ferry leaves to cross the Wyre for Fleetwood, in another tiny village called Knotend, is a series of corporation benches facing the sea. The first one was a temptation I couldn't resist; running at the side of Mcgill was like driving on the motorway in second gear. I saw the bench and broke into a sprint. I was full of life and energy and leaping the bench lengthways shouldn't present a problem, not the way I was feeling. I didn't make it, my toes caught the arm rest at the far end and I went arse over tip onto the concrete. My ribs hurt and my toes felt as if they'd been amputated. As I hobbled back, Mcgill said I'd be OK after a day or two, I was fit enough and the rest would do me good. It sickened me, it was the first time in my life I'd failed to clear a corporation bench.