by Matt Hill
Jan!
She traces a cross over her bosom –
Jan!
She places her hands on his shoulders –
You are possessed, she tells Brian. You do not touch my children.
The sounds of Paris ’69, of Manchester 2012, ring through the car park, ring off the wet walls. The damp night and the cold breeze, the wind with teeth. Outside, vehicles are overturned; the chants are loud as the bottles find their marks.
All night, the whole way through, and into tomorrow, today, a full twelve hours of dissolving order and demolition. A lot of hate and a lot more fear. Blood and pavements. Twelve hours. Time rewound and left to play. A long player, this one – the city caught by its short and curlies.
A long player.
Brian sleeps on and off, on and off, and his dead weight never seemed heavier. His aches and pains, aches and groans.
Jan’s kids don’t sleep. Jan’s kids have questions.
Daddy says the brown people hate our country, the littlest says. The littlest in his duffel, who keeps fingering his nose. Do they?
That’s not true, goes Brian. Everybody hates this country. But you must love this country in spite –
Daddy says we had a bus.
The kids have their dropped vowels, their strange hodge-podge accents. Local accents with Polish flecks. Dropping the vowels, changing thee to dee. Probably educated at one of the few schools worth trying. Where you pay or pull in favours to get your name on the register. That or one of them tunnel schools you hear about. Jan mentioned the tunnels – you have to put two and two together.
Did you see his bands?
Bands?
Jan’s littlest pushes his duffel coat sleeve up his arm. There are eight black rubber bracelets. The kid waves it under Brian’s nose.
How many lines you got? he whispers.
Lines? Brian shrugs. Brian only knows white lines on flat hard surfaces. I don’t know –
I can’t wait for my first real lines, Jan’s littlest says. My father’s got forty-two. Says he’ll get a full-sleeve before he’s dead.
You’ll regret a tattoo, Brian tells him.
Do you want to play a game?
I don’t know any games.
We have a talker. We talk to our friends on it. You can play –
Brian shrugs.
It’s over there. You press the button and say hello and sometimes they say hello as well.
Walkie-talkies?
Jan’s littlest shakes his head. The hair mats and sticks across his forehead.
A radio? Is that it?
A talker, Jan’s littlest says. Come see.
I can’t move, Brian tells him. All this dead weight and weighty dread.
Oh.
Where’s your father now?
On a mission, the child tells Brian.
Brian shakes his head. He can’t be out there, in that, in and among that.
And your mother?
Jan’s littlest shrugs. Sleeping I think.
Okay, Brian says. I’m going to sleep now, too.
But you said you’d play a game.
No, lad – I said I don’t know any.
Jan’s littlest pulls a face.
I have another one here, he says. He pulls out a roll of Sellotape. What you do is find the end, stick a sheet to the wall, tighten the end up, close your eyes and spin it on the floor, and then you find the end again. If you are fast, you win! My mother’s record was two seconds because she kept her fingernails long. That’s what she told me.
Brian eyebrows go up.
I don’t have any nails, he says.
Jan’s littlest furrows his brow.
Is that because you are the devil?
Over the carpets, the patterns and fabric tigers, the vibrant bushes and the fraying edges, the room’s edges – the edges of hospitality, where warm feet would land on cold grit – comes a jangling, jarring rattle.
Brian has learnt a new reflex. His hand goes to the handle. The box moves towards him.
The rattle’s nuances, the sounds at top frequency, the spat-out grit, reach the far drape. The drape shifts. The rattle appears. A varnished wooden chair, set on hard rubber wheels, big foot plates on it, and backed with pale straps, being pushed by a sweating man.
Jan comes off the concrete and over the smooth. The chair runs silent, its bearings in decent shape, to the mattress. To Brian’s pit.
The man with antiques like my potato, Jan says.
Brian has heard of these collectors; these finders and keepers. Like him, his archives, they try and guard what happened before.
I take sack of potato and tell him mother has broke back, Jan continues.
Dead flash that, Brian says, looking it up and down. It’s a beautiful thing.
It come with slope for entry and escaping, Jan tells him. It good solid wood.
You’re decent, you are, Brian says.
You want try? I ask for big one.
I’ll have a go, aye. Help me up.
Those hands go under those pits. Up he goes. Up and in. From unfolded to folded up.
On first impressions, the back of the chair is hard. The kind of hard that gives you decent posture or breaks your pelvis first. He finds that the back of the chair puts an even pressure on his welt; his worsening wound.
Brian’s mashed feet sag into the foot plates. It fits real nice. It fits pretty good. It fits, and no less.
Fish man can breathe once again, Jan tells Brian, and points to his back. Do you want squashing behind here?
Brian shakes his head.
Pressure’s good, ta.
Because the pressure spreads the pain thin.
Good, says Jan. Now you stay and have time for practise. I go again.
The old CB unit has a lot of character, if that’s what you call dents. The children handle it with that enthusiasm you lose at puberty. They point out the dials, the needles, the receiver cord and the sprouting wires. Brian pretends to care. Nods when he thinks he’s meant to. But his ears prick when the static flares; when the first few voices cut across.
Jesus, Brian says – just as he realises Jan must have tapped the city mains. This works?
In a huddle, they’re sweeping for decent signals, chatty channels. Usually settling on the city’s unofficial channel twelve. The crackle and the waves as the bands swap seats with static.
Ears on? What’s that handle, big boy?
Brian swallows.
Anybody?
I’m . . . I’m Meredith.
Roger that, Meredith. Call me what you like, though others get away with Merc, but said Merk, like merkin but chopped in half. You come over noisy that way, pal.
War outside, isn’t it.
Got eyeballs on my own war, the man says. My war at home. Where are you?
Long since left. I’m staying with friends.
Oh aye?
Yes.
Quiet mouse are we? I’m in this dusky husk they called Tameside once upon a time. Bunker life’s easy in’t it, when you know how. Got me telly, got me auto-feeder, got me united re-runs. You there, big boy?
Yes.
Mint. So whereabouts you hiding now? Don’t we all ask that on first dates? Sense of place in’t it.
Brian swallows.
Bloody atmosphere’s blue up here.
Pure bear patrols, is why pal? Caught the arse-end of news before. All kicking off again.
Sounds like they’ve got the pigs out, aye.
All the same, these bleedin’ protesters. How I see it is they don’t know what they want or why they’re ’aving it in the first place. Browns on whites on whites on browns. Tellin’ you mate. Weird. If it in’t the government it’s their mates in job queue. They don’t bomb shit. It’s the councils. Same old fear, divide and conquer and all that, in’t it?
Maybe –
Trust, mate. Trust me. You think they’re, even arsed about us lot down ’ere, in these shitholes with twenty quid for a month or whatever?
I don’t know.
Civil war’s good for ’em innit? S’what they want. Get all these bad scrotes off the streets, they’re thinking. Dunno what they fuckin’ expect turning off our footy anyways. No porn, no footy, no fuckin’ wife to speak of. No wonder all these mad-head white-boys start making bombs and fightin’ pakis all over. And the pakis themselves. You aren’t a paki are you Meredith?
Brian doesn’t say much. Doesn’t say anything to that.
Where was you again, mate?
Near Victoria station.
No way, Merc says. Speak to kids that way on some nights, me.
Brian looks at Jan’s firstborn.
Yeah?
Aye, precocious buggers an’ all. Pair of ’em, till their mam gets on the mic as well.
Brian is staring at Jan’s children.
Their dad’s some assassin, mind. Won’t be fuckin’ with that.
Assassin?
Oh aye. These kids of his got their own gun stash for when he’s out. They’ve had it rattling about when I’ve been on before. Mental –
Brian has stopped listening. Brian has basically stopped breathing –
And he freelances for these Wilbers, Merc says. Nob-’eads them mate; another bunch you don’t see pulling weight for new lands and glory.
Thought you said you were in a bunker, says Brian.
Bunker with a fuckin’ massive aerial on it, aye. Anyway mate. Just keep your head down in there. Won’t be like 2012 till army turns in, so you’ve got a couple of days holding on yet. Got a mate broadcasting out of some squat in the Ferguson if you need more local news. Better view than many he’s got up there. Want the frequency?
Brian nods as if it’s obvious. Brian distant. Brian speaks: Go on.
But those bad words are ringing.
Wilber. Freelancer.
The boat rolling past their camp.
The wife and her fear.
The children and their dirty, filthy fingernails.
So Brian drops the mic. Backs away. The kids take note and get on with their games. Their chats and their check-ins.
The whole world is too good to be true.
The run is a roll and his way to the light.
The concrete and the stairs and out for the night –
The chair is weighty, Colin’s box doubly so, and the ramp of the car park is hard.
The kids are unconscious. Bruises at worst. Not a proud moment. Not a bloody proud moment from any angle.
His shaking hands beneath the still-wet wool, scrabbling about in the only pockets that count. The pockets for spare fifties and the two vital business cards. Wet, they’re wet, but not all gone. He squints, doesn’t he. Squints to see a pair of names, the streaking numbers.
Tariq.
Ian.
Brian stole matches, too. He has matches. He stole fruit; he has apples. He has the box –
Jan’s wife was sleeping. Drugged, maybe, the more you think on it.
Jan on his errands; bombing about in these unsociable hours. And Brian keeps running, rolling. Not knowing the day. The days gone, his house gone, Diane –
The dirty pavement, these filthy roads, the markings rubbed off and the grids filled and emptying themselves. Manchester, his Manchester — as sharp on the eyes as any broken bottle.
Brian hangs some corners and rattles along, the box in his lap like some anchor. He’s got everything wrong.
He stops by the river, facing the cathedral. The city’s Godhead. And from so many spire tips, God looks back down on everything. If he’s real, he won’t miss a trick. The coke in the towers; the lives of His flowers.
BUT HE ISN’T LISTENING.
Brian, he says sorry just in case. He lights a match and tosses it over the bridge. He can’t see the water, but hopes the rainbow-oil will set alight.
He moves along, then. When nothing happens. When he doesn’t even hear the fizz. He moves on towards town, and smoke. Towards orange-bottomed clouds and the screams and the firebombs.
And it’s funny, you know. He’s not used to the wheelchair’s rattles. The hardness of the wheels themselves. But he likes it. The pain of his back spread out flat.
From balconies and roads round corners, he can hear shouting. A black hole pulling their city back in. And Brian has the box, the chair, but no plans.
All around, rubber smoke, that barricade cologne, hangs over everything. Something hotter, nastier, tickles his septum. Tear gas already.
It takes just a moment longer to notice:
The Beetham Memorial Column is off.
Brian whispers his mother’s tongue:
I beheld the earth. And, lo, it was waste and void. And the heavens, they had no light.
And morning has broken with rubber bullets.
Brian has a pair of business cards. Cards where the ink ran but the numbers held. Salvation is a bunch of fifties he keeps for emergencies. Fifties for payphones and cig papers. Fifties he’s found. This is it. This is the phone box. He fights the door open. And his hands are on the back panel of the phone box, fully out of his seat now. The cards of the Cat Flap in every frigging call box in this city. His back lighting up, sharp and hot, and all this sweat in his eyes.
So the coins go in. He pecks out the first set of digits. The heat and sweat, the stinging cheeks and blood-shot eyes.
Tariq dials out.
Tariq dials out twice.
He pecks out Ian’s number.
Ian dials out.
Brian pecks out his home number – holding his breath.
50p in. Ring ring.
Ring ring.
Ring ring.
Ring ring.
Hello, Brian.
Are you Jesus? Brian says.
No, Ian says. Why? Are you?
I’m Neptune, Brian says. And soon as I get chance I’m coming to rip your head off.
This was the wrong street. It was the worst street. It was the street between –
One lad lumps Brian in the face. Another wraps Saint George’s flag round his head and twists the ends, squashing his nose. More punches fall in. The heel of a boot in the groin.
The fuck is your legs about man, one of them says. Through all of it, Brian holds that box for dear life.
Pigs! shouts this other. Down there!
Brian can’t see much for the cut on his eyebrow. He can hear the pig, though. Everyone can hear the tracks, the whistling. It’s a tank, after all. A tank for coppers.
Fucking do one boys! this lad says. Their footsteps cobble the road. They try tipping Brian’s chair for good measure –
Brian pulls away with the flag. He half-sees the pig roll up. It’s Tiananmen Square all over. The brakes peal. The top hatch pops. Some council goon has his head out, his war-face on. A camera hanging off his helmet.
You escaped a care home have you?
Enjoying the fresh air, Brian says, his hand turned a shiny red. He mops his eyes with the flag. Leave me be.
Curfew’s extended, smart-arse. You’re meant to be inside. We can haul you in if needs be.
I’m on my way, Brian tells him. Just passing through.
You’re advised to listen to Council radio for the time being. Get yourself out of harm’s way.
No need to shout at me –
The council goon shakes his head and gets on with his work. Brian sits in the exhaust fumes as the pig trundles past.
Brian in his chair in the centre of his dying city.
Brian pets his forehead, his lump. He wipes his eyes clear again. He gets his bearings. Looks this way and that.
He spots something. He starts to laugh.
On the wall, to his right, on dented shutters, in baby-pink paint-spray –
THE DEVIL MAKES WORK FOR IDLE HANDS.
Past a bathroom shop, its shutters only half down; a chippy with its windows done in, a hollowed out, drained-flat bookies; an empty chapel-booth; all these places closed for a bad sort of national holiday. The curfew like some tide that pulls away and leaves the courageous or the stupid
outside.
On down the road through the ash and embers.
Bathroom shop.
And back. The guilt – the excitement – the buzz – the single-mindedness of a special kind of bastard –
The window goes in, just like that. Big plate glass bugger as well, floor to ceiling. Brian curses the day they glazed it; makes a pig’s ear of the shards and splinters. Still: your man goes in. Nowt comes out. Your man just rolls in.
The alarm fires up the second he’s all through. Roars into his lugs. It stops all thought except the critical ones. Thoughts going: Water. Salt. Bath.
He gets it sorted. A good old rummager for all his faults. Getting used to the chair, now, too – the chair and how far you can lean out of it. And the back door’s lock is bust. So he’s out and in the yard. There’s a bin of it, water, very tepid and kind of brown. Out in the yard, the loading area, with the empty cages and polystyrene; the plastic wrap and the cardboard piles.
It takes about three weeks to drag it through at any rate. These legs of his, aren’t they a pain. But he does it, our Brian. Somehow he drags the bin of water inside. He has to on account of it’s worth it. Because it usually is.
There’s salt in the kitchen, as well. All this with the alarm still going. It’s too high to reach when he clocks it; rifling the cupboards and smashing pots and mugs and plates around him. Bloody mayhem all things considered. And there – top shelf. Sundries and that. The lo-salt in the red pot. So he goes at that with a mop, swiping like some blind swordsman. He brings the lot down. Oh aye, there’s the salt.
Salt for a bath.
He lies on his own in that dark showroom, the salted water lapping over his toes, his penis afloat, the water turned pink, and the world buzzes on, turns on its axis, swings heavy round the sun. Nobody can see him, because the shutters are up and the glass is broken, same as anywhere else – and come on, why would you want to loot a frigging bathroom shop besides – but he can see out; see the pavements picked out in bad light; the police and protesters running and stopping, closing and brawling, falling and screaming. Nightsticks in, blood out, boots in, teeth out.
And God, were He real and listening, God looks down from His perch, His cathedral seat, His temple suite.
And God sighs. His sons and servants warring.
