Story, Volume II

by Dai Smith

  Vinny waited until the door slammed and sprinted upstairs. He was back out in the street in time to freeze his dad against a bright grey sky. Gary had sportingly moved his wreck of a Norton and the bare terraces held the retreating figure – wide shoulders, straight back – as it sliced the horizon.

  ‘You know,’ he said to his mam who was still muttering on about how he mustn’t mind his dad as though if both parents got into a who-could-get-furthest-up-your-nose competition, she wouldn’t always be an outright winner.

  ‘You know, it’s really weird – eighteen years underground and Dad never got a stoop.’

  ‘Your grandad had a stoop,’ his mam offered, ‘and tiny he was – only my height… like a garden gnome, Colin used to say. I think he’d had rickets when he was a boy.’

  ‘But he’s dead… and he was on the railway. He’s no use. I can’t photograph him.’

  He mulled it over while he cruised with the Canon, trying to work out what it was his Dad’s silhouette brought to mind… up Melidan and into Ash Grove catching an old woman in fluffy white slippers walking a Westie, wearing its relatives for the camera. Two boys sprawled across the bonnet of a parked car, the smaller shouting, ‘It’s me brovers’ an’ ’e don’t mind so piss off!’ as Vinny snapped them.

  He finished the film in the street: one of the Crawford girls rehanging her grandmother’s net curtains, tomcats fighting on the footpath behind the scruffy strips of garden and a portrait of Les Lewis in his aviary with budgies fluttering about his head. Les had to clap to get them airborne and Vinny was allowed just one shot. ‘Doin’ it more than once,’ said Les, ‘’ll leave the poor little buggers without a feather to their names.’

  Les’ prize bird was called Tony after Tony Blair.

  ‘Nice looker,’ Vinny ragged him, ‘but can he perform?’

  Les was the Labour Party agent. He didn’t rise. ‘You on the roll at y’mam an’ dad’s?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess… on the roll but not on a roll.’

  Les wasn’t interested in Vinny’s problems. ‘Proxy vote is what you want then, for the local elections. Those Liberal Democrats always sniffin’ round, you know.’ He favoured a bright yellow bird with a vicious look. ‘Even that Plaid! And then there’s this Assembly. Mind you, I reckon old Benny Potts won’t live to run. Pickled.’

  Vinny grinned. Whatever his mam said, booze remained the drug of choice round here.

  ‘It’s true! He could go at any time. Mervyn Price says he fears for the safety of the Crematorium if they get the job. “Abide With Me” – and then one hell of a big bang! Anyhow we don’t want to get caught short and you off at that college. What you doin’ there?’

  ‘Photography … with journalism. It’s a sort of combined—’

  ‘George Orwell,’ said Les, ‘he’s the boy. Greatest journalist that ever lived. Got all his books upstairs … if you want a lend.’

  ‘Thanks. Got most of them for A-level. Inside the Whale, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-four…’ Vinny popped the lens-cap on: the only coda in his waking life. ‘I’ll get these developed tonight. Bring you a copy of you and the birds, eh? I’m gonna put captions on them all or a slice of text – “Socialist attacked by true-blue budgies!”… “Hitchcock comes to the arse-end of Flint!”’

  Les turned away, his mind on millet. ‘Remind your dad there’s a committee meeting tomorrow. He’s missed the last two.’

  He could’ve corrected Les but didn’t. With people Les’ age you could lose good time out of your allocation putting them right.

  ‘You just keep watching the birdies,’ he said.

  Vinny had to share his dark room with the Hoover, the ironing board and linen basket, a pile of old suitcases and a half-dismembered shopper-bike. His spine ached. His elbows needed to be pinned close to his sides to prevent damage. If he straightened up one of the stairs grazed the crown of his head.

  Even before the print was out of the fixing bath Vinny’s brain closed on what it had been ferreting around for: those two lines of black italics that he could thread across the page.

  George Orwell.

  It was as if the long-dead writer had lain in his grave just waiting for Vinny Morris to capture the image of his words. ‘Noble bodies’ Orwell had said, ‘wide shoulders tapering to slender supple waists’ and ‘not an ounce of waste flesh anywhere.’ This was Orwell’s picture of miners: confident, athletic beings, physiques made beautiful in the performance of masculine function.

  Not an ounce of waste flesh.

  In Vinny’s picture Karen or Carly or Ceri Crawford – whatever her name was – fought with the veil of nylon lace on her grandmother’s glass… but next door the bedroom was uncurtained and Gaynor Flynn’s plump arms wrapped the hard muscles of his dad’s torso and Gaynor Flynn’s face hid itself in the hollow of his dad’s neck.

  “Looking good, Dad,” Vinny said.

  DALTON’S BOX

  Des Barry

  ‘You remember Mick Dalton, don’t you?’ my brother said. ‘Tall feller with spiky black hair. Always fancied himself as a bit of a Godfather type, right?’

  ‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Great bloke. Played cricket with you, didn’t he? For Glyn Taf Engineering?’

  ‘Aye, before he went in jail the last time.’

  My brother took a big swallow of his Brains SA and then set the pint down on the table in front of him.

  ‘Anyway,’ my brother said. ‘Four months ago, he wins three thousand quid on the National Lottery.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Aye. So I says to him, right, “What you gonna do with the winnings then, Mick?”’

  ‘“Invest it,” he says.’

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ I said. ‘What was it this time?’

  ‘Import-export,’ my brother said.

  ‘Not again,’ I said.

  ‘He’s got a better plan now. He says, “I’ll pay off the debts, about five hundred quid, then I got just the scheme for a three-hundred-per-cent return on the initial outlay, like. But nothing too heavy. Nothing the dogs can sniff out, like. So it’s fags.”’

  ‘Fags?’ I said.

  ‘Aye. Fags. Contraband Marlboro cigarettes. Two thousand five hundred quid’s worth. So Mick gets on the phone to Spain where his mates are now, and asks this bloke, Harry Smalls, if he can get him these fags, right? So Harry says, “Aye, I can get them for you, but you have to do this right, innit? Set up a company, see. If I try to send through a bloody big box addressed to you, personally, the Customs are bound to open it up to have a look inside.”’

  ‘“Fair enough,” Mick says. So he thinks a bit. “Oh, right,” he says, “I know just the thing. I’ll register a company called British Drain. You can ship the box with a load of pipe on top so, even if they open it it’ll look legit, unless they really dig down.”

  ‘“Brilliant,” Harry says.

  ‘So off goes Mick, registers the company, then he rents a prefab unit on the Bryn Morlais Industrial Estate for a hundred quid a week: a minor additional investment, like. He’s got a chair in the office and the mobile phone and he sits there waiting for the delivery. Two weeks go by, right? Then this big lorry pulls into the car park: International Express. Must be the fags. Out goes Mick.

  ‘“British Drain,” he shouts, “You got a delivery for British Drain?”

  ‘Aye,’’ says the driver. “There’s a box in the back.”

  ‘“I’ll take it,” says Mick.

  ‘The driver looks at him. “You’ll take it, will you?”

  ‘“Aye,” says Mick.

  ‘“Well it’s four hundred kilos, mate. Fetch us the forklift.”

  ‘So Mick says, “Oh damn! The forklift! I had to put it in the garage this morning. Hydraulics are fucked.”

  ‘The driver says, “Well, how’m I supposed to get it off, then?”

  ‘“Hang on, mate,” Mick says, “No problem, I’ll get in the motor and have my mate next door come over and give us a hand.”

  ‘Car keys outta the pocket. Into the
old Polo. He shoots across to Wesley’s Builders Supplies where his mate works in the yard. He pulls in, and there’s this mate of his, already on the forklift, stacking pallets of bricks.

  ‘“Evan,” Mick says, “bring the forklift next door a minute. I got a delivery.”

  ‘Evan is that long-haired bloke with thick glasses, lives up on Quarry Row. Anyway, Evan, cool as you please, lays a brick pallet down, reverses the forklift, and swings it round next to Mick’s car.

  ‘“Not a fucking chance, son,” he says. “Knowing you, it’s prob’ly fucking red-hot.”

  ‘“I swear to God,” Mick says. “It’s just pipe.”

  ‘“Just pipe?” he says.

  ‘“Swear to God.”

  ‘Evan says, “Look, get the lorry round here, and I’ll take it off for you. At least you won’t be holding the driver up, then. But Wesley’ll sack me if I drive the forklift out of the yard.”

  ‘So Mick goes back to his unit at the industrial estate and persuades the driver to pull into Wesley’s. Well, Evan unloads it, and there it is: a big fucking wooden box in the middle of the yard. And the lorry drives off.

  ‘“Keep it here,” Mick says. “Coupla days, no more.”

  ‘“Not a fucking chance,” Evan says. “I don’t know what the fuck is in there, but get it outta here before Wesley sees it. Or the cops show up.”

  ‘Mick is fucking gutted, like. Evan won’t budge. Nothing for it but to hire a flatbed lorry, a small, unforeseen addition to the investment, but what the fuck? Got to be done. Off he drives, down to Baker’s Garage and rents one for the day. Hundred fucking quid, just to get the box from Wesley’s yard to his unit. Anyway, long story short, Evan puts the box on the back of the flatbed. Mick drives it round to the unit and reverses the lorry into the bay. He pulls the roller doors shut and gets up on the flatbed to sort the box out. Crowbar. Creak creak. Pull back the straw and what’s in the box? Pipe. Fucking loads of plastic pipe. Piece by piece, faster and faster, he tosses it out on to the concrete floor of the unit, pipe plunking everywhere, and then, about halfway down, he comes across a box of fags, then another one. He counts twenty-five boxes of a hundred fags. Marlboros, right? And then there was more black pipe. So all he’s got is two thousand five hundred fags.

  ‘What the fuck is this all about, like? He doesn’t even jump off the back of the lorry. Straight on the mobile. Top-dollar international phone call.

  ‘“Harry,” he says. “What the fuck is going on, son? I asked for two thousand five hundred quid’s worth of fags, not two thousand five hundred fags in packets.”

  ‘“No problem, son,” Harry says. “Dry run, see. Had to know if they’d get through Customs and that. Next delivery, you get the full hog.”

  ‘“Next delivery?” Mick says, “When’ll that be?”

  ‘“Coupla weeks, no more.”

  ‘Coupla weeks. Well, the unit is costing him a hundred quid a week. So he has to get some casual work. He asks Evan next door at Wesley’s to keep an eye out for the delivery and call him on the mobile when it comes. Plenty of fucking casual on the railway these days. That’s it. Labourer for Railtrack, fixing the lines.

  ‘So there he is now, Mick, out under the pissing rain humping railway sleepers and levering steel rails about for the next four weeks, getting more and more para that Harry’s stiffed him. Anyway, it’s a Wednesday afternoon and the mobile finally rings.

  ‘“You better get up here fast, son,” Evan says. “There’s a fucking big box sitting outside the unit. I assume it’s for you.”

  ‘“Thanks for taking it off the lorry, mate,” Mick says.

  ‘“I didn’t take it off,” Evan says. “It was there at two o’clock, after I got back from the canteen.”

  ‘“Oh aye?” Mick says. “Well, anyway, thanks for ringing, Ev.”

  ‘Now how did the box get there without a forklift? Mick smells a rat, like. So he puts the phone back in his pocket and yells to the foreman, who’s about fifty yards up the tracks.

  ‘“My mother’s had an accident,” he says. “Gotta go up the hospital straight away. My father on the mobile.”

  ‘So the foreman is like, “Is she all right?”

  ‘“Car accident,” Mick says. “Don’t fucking know, mate. I gotta go.”

  ‘Fair enough. The foreman lets him go. So Mick runs down to where he’s parked his car. Over the fence, into the Polo, and he takes off. But he doesn’t drive straight up to the unit, right? He goes the long way round through Pant Gerrig, so that he can approach the industrial estate from the top of the mountain. Better view of the whole scene like that. And sure enough, he comes over the top of the hill by the cemetery, and there’s the box sitting in the car park. But what does he see on a side road by the ICI rugby field? There’s these two bloody great Ford vans: a white one with two big bruisers inside, and a black one with blacked-out windows with three more bruisers on the bench seat. He memorises the black van’s number plate, drives across the overpass, round the roundabout and out of sight into the Brychan Housing Estate. He parks down on Second Avenue. Out with the mobile. He has to check the number. So he calls up this girl he knows, Jillian Rees – he’s shagged her a few times – works for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. All the contacts, like, Mick.

  ‘“Hiya, Jill,” he says. “Check this number for me, love.”

  ‘“Hang on,” she says.

  ‘A couple of minutes later, she’s back on the line.

  ‘“Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise, love.”

  ‘“Thanks, Jill,” he says and he closes the phone.

  ‘Well, that’s it, innit? What’s he gonna do now, like? He doesn’t want to deal with any fucking box of contraband fags. Or the Customs. So he goes off to the pub. He has about four pints in the Cross Hands before Evan shows up for his after-work beer.

  ‘“What about that fucking box, then?” Evan says, setting his pint down.

  ‘“Leaving it there.” Mick says. “Customs are all over it. Waiting for me to pick it up.”

  ‘“Thought you said it isn’t dope,” Evan says.

  ‘“It isn’t,” Mick says. “It’s fags.”

  ‘“Fags,” Evan says. “Fucking hell.”

  ‘They sit there a minute in silence.

  ‘“But look,” Evan says, “that box is sitting in your car park, addressed to British Drain, which is registered in your name, innit? Sooner or later, they’ll come looking for you anyway. And another thing – you can’t leave that box there. It’s right next to Brychan Housing Estate, home to three thousand fucking burglars, junkies and con artists. Some thieving bastard is bound to notice that box before long and that’s the fucking end of it. Customs or no customs, they’ll have it out of there. Either way, like, you’re fucked.”

  ‘“Ah, Evan!” says Mick. “You’re a fucking genius, son. Someone is indeed going to steal that box. And I know just the man to do it. Ikey Pearse, the best fucking burglar on the Brychan Estate. He’d do it for a couple of hundred quid.”

  ‘So right away, Mick gets on the mobile to Ikey. Tells him about the box. And the fucking Customs, fair play.

  ‘“Look,” says Mick. “It could be red-hot. Give it a few days, right. Wait till them Customs blokes get sick of staking it out, then get it outta there. Even if they pick you up, they can’t do you, ’cause I’m not going to press charges, am I?”

  ‘“Brilliant,” Ikey says.

  ‘“Thing is,” says Mick, “you’ll need a fucking forklift.”

  ‘“No problem,” Ikey says. “I got a mate. This gypsy. Up on the Bogie Road. Got a fucking flatbed, son. With a big fucking Hiab hoist on it.”

  ‘“Brilliant,” Mick says.

  ‘“It’ll cost you five hundred quid,” Ikey says.

  ‘Five hundred quid! Fucking hell. More investment in the project, like, but Mick still makes a profit if Ikey pulls it off. And if anyone can pull it off, Ikey Pearse can. “Done,” says Mick and closes the phone.

  ‘So Ikey waits for
four days before he does the business. A fucking moonless, wet and cloudy night, as they say. Normal for the town of Blaentaff, innit? Ikey gets the gyppo with his truck. Mick drives around the industrial estate first for a recce. No sign of either one of the vans. They must have got fed up. After all, it’s only fags, innit? Mick drives back into the Brychan Estate and tells Ikey the score. Then he goes off to wait for him in the pub.

  ‘Ikey, the gyppo, and two of his mates get in the lorry. They come out of the estate, drive round the roundabout, and down the steep hill. There’s the box in the car park, right outside the unit. They pull in. Out of the cab. The gyppo swings the cable down from the Hiab. Ikey and one of his boys fasten it around the box, the gyppo works the levers, and the box swings up on to the flatbed. They undo the cables, then they’re back in the cab, and away they go. No sign of any Customs. Going up the hill, back towards the housing estate, they hear this scraping sound, then a hideous thump, and Ikey looks behind. The box is sitting in the middle of the road. They hadn’t tied it down, had they? And it had slid off the back of the flatbed.’

  ‘Oh fuck,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing else for it. Ikey and the gyppo jump out of the cab to get to the hoist, and the next the thing they know, right out of nowhere, there’s about sixty fucking Customs men all over them, blue lights flashing on their unmarked cars, like a major fucking drugs bust.’

  ‘All over, like.’

  ‘Well, they haven’t got Mick, but anyway, they take Ikey and each one of his boys to a different district police station, right? And they use the gyppo’s lorry and the hoist to get the box back on the flatbed and down the station they go with the box.

  ‘Then these two Customs hard cases come into the interrogation room to get into Ikey. One of them’s a cockney, right?