by Ray Banks
Gav was about to head back to the party when he saw a red Cavalier turn in at the top of the cul-de-sac. He checked his watch and smiled. She was right on time.
The Cavalier parked a little way up and Andrea Lynch stepped out of the back. She was wearing a dark red jacket, black skirt and, when she saw Gav, smiled in a practised but easy way. Labour MP for Gateshead East, Andrea Lynch was one of those pretty feminists who looked severe at a certain angle. Phil didn't like her very much when she'd introduced herself to Gav on the campaign trail, but then Phil didn't like strong women. He didn't trust a woman with a good education and any way you cut it, this was a woman with a good education – one of them posh schools in Newcastle, off to Oxford and then came back to Newcastle to do all the post-grad politics stuff. So she was definitely someone to watch your fucking mouth around.
"You made it, then?"
"Thought I'd stop by, yes."
"Congratulations on the win."
"Thanks very much."
"Wish it had been national."
"Well, you do what you can. We only got thirty-one per cent of the national vote."
"Really?"
She looked around, still smiling, but her eyes were flint. "It's a step forward. And we didn't lose the north. That's the important thing."
"You staying long?"
"Just a flying visit, I'm afraid. There's a picket I need to be at."
"You going to be chucking bricks?"
She laughed. "I've got people to do that for me. No, listen, I wanted to bend your ear about your community work here." She gestured to the street party. "I mean, this is quite a turnaround, and I have it on good authority that it was mostly down to you."
Gav tried to look humble. "It's all of us, really."
Andrea nodded, as if she knew the game. "Of course, but I thought it might be a good idea if we pencilled in a time we could meet and have a chat?"
"Sounds good to me."
She smiled. "Maybe lunch some time?"
A free lunch? Oh aye. "I could manage that."
"Great." Andrea regarded the assembled community and nodded slowly. She looked back at Gav. "You've done a fantastic job here, Gavin. You should be proud of yourself."
"Thank you."
"Anyway, give my office a call. We'll arrange a time."
"Will do."
Gav watched her get back into the Cavalier and take off. He turned and melted back into the crowd. Lunch with an MP? Not bad. Wanting to hear his strategies for community work? Even better. Just what he'd been angling for when he met her on the campaign trail. The grapevine had obviously been buzzing since then.
Think about it: a year ago, this hadn't been on the cards at all – it was all about making ends meet. Christ, a year ago, he hadn't even really considered owning his own business. He didn't have the chops for it, and Fiona had been right to question him when he did mention it. But he'd done it, hadn't he? He'd managed it. Fucking hell. Hadn't he just. As much as he'd voted Labour – he was never going to vote anything else, was he? – there was some truth in what Her Down South had to say for herself. Sometimes you had to make your own opportunities. Just get off your arse and do something, take a risk and reap the reward. He found Fiona over by the drinks table. She was flushed and leaning. She didn't smile as he approached. "You see Andy?"
"Andy?" He looked around. "Nah, not since earlier."
"Where was he then?"
"I think he's off round the back of the house. He's fine. Anyway, did you see? Andrea Lynch turned up."
"Who?"
"The MP."
"Is that who that was?" Fiona frowned at him. Something about Andrea that Fiona clearly didn't like. She got snippy and tight whenever Gav mentioned her name. Way Gav saw it, that was her problem, not his. It explained why she'd made herself scarce, mind. He'd have to talk to her about it if they took this thing further.
"Yeah, I was looking for you. She's invited us to lunch."
Fiona topped up her glass from the box of red. "Us?"
"Me."
"What for?" Fiona drank some wine. Her lips were already purple.
"She wants to talk about what we did here."
Fiona didn't say anything for a while. "What are you going to tell her?"
"The truth."
"Really?"
Gav smiled. "A version of it. The clean version. The version that makes me look good. Whatever it takes."
"You going into politics now?"
He laughed.
"What's so funny?"
Shook his head. "I'm not going into politics, love."
"You sure?"
"Yes, but you never know when someone like that's going to be useful."
Fiona watched him, still thinking. "Well. You be careful, love." She pushed off the table and walked away through the crowd. Looked as if she was searching for Andy.
Gav watched her go. Couldn't follow. He'd expected her to be suspicious, but he'd also expected her to have a bit more ambition. This was a major opportunity. If you had the politicians onside, then you had it made. Politics meant press, press meant power, power meant money and money meant the world. It was like he'd been given two long poles when he was a kid, and only now he'd noticed the rungs holding them together. All he had to do was climb. He picked and popped a can of Carling and guzzled.
Life was good.
It stayed that way for a long time. At about eight o'clock, when the evening finally turned chilly, the party moved indoors. Gav watched groups splinter from the main tables and head into houses, watched some of the older women refuse to take no for an answer as they took it upon themselves – forever mothers, grannies and maids – to clear away the paper plates and bag the empties. By that time, Gav was onto his seventh can and carried a low buzz that felt as if his brain was swirling slowly around the inside of his skull. He saw Phil, slumped in a white plastic lawn chair, a can of lager in his hand and a leg propped up on another chair. A cigarette smoked between two fingers. Phil flicked ash as Gav came over.
"Not bad, eh?"
"Aye, not bad."
"People enjoyed themselves."
"Aye." Phil nodded at one of the houses across the road. The front door stood open, the curtains back and music blaring. "Still are, by the looks of it."
Gav pulled a tab. "About time, though, eh?"
"Oh aye." Phil nodded slowly, watching the shadows. "You're not wrong there, like."
"How's it been with you?"
"Not so bad. Quiet."
"You still doing Bamburgh Street these days?"
"Aye."
"Owt or nowt?"
"Nowt, mostly." Phil readjusted his balls through his shorts. Turned his head Gav's way. "Just kids, you know."
"Heard Viv caught a couple of sniffers the other week."
"That's what he said, was it?"
"That's what he told us."
Phil shook his head. "Kids with butane."
"Still."
"It's nowt."
Gav tapped ash. "You bored, Phil?"
Phil didn't reply. He blinked once, then moved his foot from the other chair and stood. He walked towards his cab. "You want to come for a ride?"
"I've got to get back."
"Won't take a minute. Come on. I've got something to show you."
31
"So what d'you think?"
"I don't know." Gav sat high in the passenger seat, the window rolled down and his arm hanging out over the cab door. He tapped the door softly with his fingers. Looking through the windscreen at three low-rise blocks of flats that looked a sneeze away from falling down: Eldon Court, Collingwood Court and Stowell Court. Phil's hands were wrapped around the steering wheel. One finger tapped the lacquer on the wheel in a slow, steady, complementary beat.
Gav stayed quiet, then stopped tapping.
"Problem?"
Still quiet. He'd been out here a few times before, but never bothered to look around. It wasn't the kind of place where you took in the scenery, more likely you
leaned a little harder on the accelerator as you passed. And now he'd had a better look, he wasn't sure wanted to hang around much longer.
The flats in front of him weren't strictly a part of the Derwent Hall. A wide main road separated the flats from the rest of the estate. You never really saw people from over here knocking around over there, and the Hall was the kind of place where people knew each other well enough to notice strangers in their midst. Truth of it was, Gav had never really considered the flats as part of the estate, hadn't thought of them as worth bothering about, and had largely forgotten about them. So he wanted to ask what the fuck he was doing sat outside them now.
Except he didn't, because he knew why he was there.
"Gav?"
Gav turned his head, but he didn't look at Phil. "Still thinking."
"Fifteen minutes we've been here, there's been what, three fuckin' deals?"
"Uh-huh."
"And that's just the ones we can see."
"I know that."
"Well, then."
"I saw it. I saw each one. I know what's happening."
"This is right on our doorstep, mate."
"Is it?"
"Course it is."
"Because I just came from a nice party, Phil. I didn't see any dealers there."
"Where d'you think them smackheads are from? You think we run the dealers out, we ran the customers out an' all?" Phil gestured at the windscreen. "Just because you sack the dealers, doesn't mean they don't still have a market."
"Then they're coming all the way out here? Okay."
"Okay?"
"Fine. They're not buying on the estate, so our homes are all right." Gav looked at Phil now. "I never said we should beat fuck out of the addicts, man. They're just weak. I said we target the dealers."
"You said that?"
"I said that. We target the dealers on the Hall. This place isn't the Hall."
"It's close. It can spill over—"
"How likely?"
"It happened before, didn't it?"
Gav nodded at the flats."You know those dealers came from out here?"
"Where else would they come from? And what's stopping them from coming out again?"
"Us."
"So what are we then, Gav? We're like the fuckin' police then. We're reactive. You want to nip this in the bud before it all kicks off again."
"Oh, do I?"
"Aye, you fuckin' do."
"And after I do that, where does it end, Phil?"
Phil looked back at the flats.
Gav stared at him. "You get me?"
"Aye, I get you. This is a bit outside our area. I understand that. Thought it might be a sticking point. But, you've got to ask yourself, you're talking to that Lynch woman, you might want to ask yourself if you want to take this up a notch."
"What's Andrea got to do with this?"
"You want to really impress her?"
"Fuck off. What's this—"
"Is what I'm saying." Phil slapped the steering wheel and pointed at the flats. "You clean up this place an' all. You make a good job of it, you're going to be a local hero, man."
Gav nodded his head, looked as if he was giving the idea some thought, playing at being boss. Had to at least pretend like he was thinking it over, the way Phil was pushing it. He scratched his chin, felt some stubble there, and breathed out long and hard. Opened his hands. Pulled a face like he had something to say, but didn't know how to say it. "After all we've been through already, and what we've accomplished ..." He gestured towards the flats. "What makes you think I want to wade through that shite?"
"All right." Phil held up a hand, thinned his lips. "You're not ready for it—"
"I didn't say I wasn't ready for it, did I?
"If you're going to bottle it—"
"How, you can less that an' all. I didn't say I didn't have the bottle. I'm talking from a strategic point of view here. What makes you think I want to come out here and pick someone else's fight, eh?"
"Nowt, man."
"Because that's what it would be. This isn't us. This is them. They want a clean block, they should sort it out themselves. I mean, I know what you're thinking. Reckon we've got a personal army on our hands, am I right? Troops defending the estate an' that. And we do have that, you're not wrong, but they're only defence, all right? Our boys are a presence. They're a warning. We drag everyone out here, we're going into the open, and we're going to get our arses kicked. There's no way around it. These dealers are working out of flats, we don't know which ones. I'm not going to knock on every door looking for a fiver bag, am I? And it's not like we can burn the place, is it?"
"Why not?"
"Because there's people in there—"
"Didn't stop us before."
Gav glared at him.
"Should've been demolished twenty year back. We'd be doing the council a favour." Phil saw he was getting nowhere and looked away. He sucked his teeth. "I'm sorry, Chief. I wasn't thinking."
Gav nodded. Oh aye, right. The only thing Phil was sorry about was bringing Gav out here in the first place. He knew how it was. He knew that Phil was bored again, and he knew that Phil wasn't the only one. There were drivers who'd patrolled the streets of the Hall, made sure they were safe so long they'd started to manufacture trouble. Gav had heard rumours of drivers getting handy with errant kids among other things. Nothing he could prove, but plenty he could worry about. Some blokes, their thoughts turned bloody after too many beers, and Gav had used a handful of those blokes to help him burn number thirteen. He'd known what they were like back then. He'd known it was a risk, but he hadn't had much of a choice. It was a question of using the tools he had to hand, or else put his family in danger.
So he knew Phil would test his limits sooner or later. He just had to be emphatic about it now. "We've got everything we need. Why would we want to go further afield?"
"We wouldn't. You said."
"No, I meant you."
"Nowt. No reason. Just thought you might want to spread out a bit."
"Why?"
Phil shifted in his seat as he twisted the key in the ignition. "No reason."
"No reason." Gav looked out the window. "But that's what you'd do?"
Phil didn't say anything. He concentrated on the road.
"Like if you were running the operation, that's what you'd do."
Again, nothing.
"We look after our own. Hope you understand that."
"Oh aye."
"Whole point of us doing what we did was for our families. Our streets are clean, our families are happy, it's a nice place to live. That was the goal."
"See, I thought it was revenge because they scared the shit out of you."
"You what?"
Phil's mouth twisted into a smile. "They scared the shit out of you. You thought they were going to do more, so you got us to fuck 'em up for you. That's all it was. You're talking about long-term goals, but you can't say that was on your mind when we torched the place."
"I'm not saying it was. I'm just saying that now—"
"Because you knocked that lass's tooth out, Gav. How was that supposed to benefit the community? And you burned her bairn."
"That was an accident."
Phil held up a hand. "And I'm not going to say owt about it. Christ, I was there. I'm a fuckin' accessory. I don't want to go to prison any more than you do, Chief. I'm just saying that this never started with thinking about the community. This started with thinking about you."
"Things change." Gav frowned at the street as it rolled by. "Good came out of it, didn't it? We got stuff done. There are opportunities here, Phil. You know, I'm in with the new MP, so maybe I can get her to do something about Dunston Park, get the playground sorted out."
Phil said nothing.
"You know what, you might be right. I might've started this on the wrong foot, but I had a reason. You want to knock heads for the sake of it, Phil. That's not right."
"Wasn't for the sake of it. It was for the ben
efit of the estate."
"Flats aren't part of the estate."
"I thought they were."
"Nah, you wanted to knock heads, Phil. You looked around for a place where you could do it and you found them flats. Don't pretend it's owt different to that. You and some of the other lads, you think I don't know you're getting jumpy with nowt to do, I've seen it and it's noted, all right? But don't get ideas above your station here. You're running fuck-all while I'm here."
Phil worked his mouth. His eyes bugged. He let out a breath through his nose.
"We clear?"
"Aye."
"You and the lads want to go junkie-bashing, you can. I'm not saying no to that, but you do it on your own time, and you don't let any of it come anywhere near me, you get me?"
"Aye."
"I mean it. I get splattered with your shit, you're on your own."
Phil glanced his way. "I get you."
Phil dropped him off outside his house, just as the last of the mess was being cleared away. The evening had turned cold, and the only warmth came from the inside lights spilling out onto the street from the party house. Gav nodded to the women who were now carrying black bags up to the kerb, gave them his best smile, and told them to get themselves away. If there was anything else, they could sort it out in the morning.
Then he turned to see the cab brake lights flare red once before they turned the corner at the end of the street.
Something still not settled there. He'd have to keep an eye on that one. Phil was beginning to get notions, like maybe Gav wasn't the leader he thought he was. And giving someone like Phil an ounce of power was like giving a kid a box of matches. Gav had already seen the small group of drivers who clustered round Phil on a regular basis. If he didn't know better, he'd swear the bastard was planning a coup.
But no, Gav had been emphatic enough. And Phil might've been a stubborn bastard with a few drivers on his side, but he was also a family man and he wasn't stupid enough to risk his income for the sake of breaking a few legs.
If he was, then Gav would do what was necessary. He had big plans, after all. And those plans wouldn't be jeopardised by uppity fucking staff.
