Fiddle City

by Dan Kavanagh

  ‘It is indeed, Mr Binyon. And how are we going to put that Great back into the name of our country?’

  Duffy appeared to give the matter some thought.

  ‘Well, I’m only guessing, here. I mean, you must know a lot more about all this than me. But it looks to me that you’ve got to kick out all the politicians and get in a new set. And it’s gotta be Britain for the British. And repatriation. And putting the Great back into Great Britain. And also if they give you too much agg, then it’s beating up the niggers and the Pakkis.’

  This time Mr Joyce allowed himself a conspiratorial chuckle. Duffy felt he wanted a wash.

  ‘But only if they give us, as you put it, too much agg, Mr Binyon.’

  ‘Oh yeah. I mean, fair’s fair, isn’t it?’

  ‘Fair’s fair indeed.’

  Mr Joyce unscrewed his fountain pen and began to take Duffy’s details. To Binyon’s name he added a false address in Paddington and a false age. He confessed to being unemployed. He denied, truthfully, any earlier political affiliation to any other movement. He promised to pay ten pounds annually, or five pounds half-yearly, or three pounds quarterly, and handed over three pounds. He signed where indicated. Then Mr Joyce went away again and returned with two books, one held in each hand: the Bible and Shakespeare. Duffy was asked to stand, and to lay one hand on each book.

  ‘I solemnly swear …’

  ‘I solemnly swear …’

  ‘That I shall be loyal to Her Majesty the Queen …’

  ‘That I shall be loyal to Her Majesty the Queen …’

  ‘And follow the aims and principles of the Red White and Blue Movement …’

  ‘And follow the aims and—what?’

  ‘Principles.’

  ‘Principles. Aims and principles of the Red White and Blue Movement …’

  ‘And obey its officers.’

  ‘And obey its officers.’

  ‘Very good. Now we have the medical. Take off your shirt.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come on, come on, take off your shirt, just a quick once-over. I am a qualified doctor.’

  Duffy reluctantly stripped to the waist.

  ‘Yes, very nice, won’t take a minute. No sickle cell anaemia, I hope? Ha ha.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, no chance of that with you.’

  Joyce produced an aged stethoscope and applied his attention to Duffy’s pectorals. He laid cold fingers on his shoulderblades and tapped. He made Duffy extend his arms full out and checked his fingertips for tremble. Maybe the bloke was a doctor. As well as being a whacko, of course.

  ‘Fine, fine. Don’t bother to get dressed again for the moment.’

  As Duffy was wondering what came next, Joyce opened his fridge and took out a loaf of sliced white bread. He extracted two pieces and slipped them into the toaster.

  ‘I’ve had breakfast, Mr Joyce, sir.’

  ‘This isn’t breakfast.’

  ‘I think I’d better be off.’

  ‘You’ve just sworn to obey the officers of the Red White and Blue Movement. Sit down again, Binyon. This won’t take long. We’ve had the medical. Now we’re going to have the physical.’ Duffy looked at him. Mr Joyce looked at the toaster. ‘This,’ he announced, ‘is the amusing bit.’

  He cleared the few remaining things off the kitchen table and wiped it down with a J cloth. When the toast was done, he lifted the slices out, buttered them thickly, and spread a lot of marmalade on top. He carried them to the table and placed them in the middle, about two feet apart. Then he wiped his hands on the J cloth.

  ‘Arm-wrestling,’ he announced. ‘Just a little fad of my own. You could call it an initiation ceremony, if you like.’

  ‘Can I put my shirt on?’

  ‘Let’s stay as we are, shall we?’

  Mr Joyce, one steel armlet glinting in the sun, extended his elbow to the middle of the table, white-shirted forearm rising vertically. Duffy, naked to the waist, put forward his own arm.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Mr Joyce, and carefully adjusted the two pieces of toast. Then he repositioned his elbow next to Duffy’s; they locked palms and thumbs.

  ‘On a count of three, shall we say? I leave you the count, Mr Binyon.’

  Right, you fucking whacko, thought Duffy, and said very quickly, ‘One two three.’

  Duffy was fit, extremely fit; and the weight training had no doubt strengthened his forearms. But his initial surge made no impact on Mr Joyce, who held the vertical without trouble. Mr Joyce had clearly done this before. So had Duffy, though probably not as often. After the opening surge that failed, Duffy applied steady pressure, but the opposing arm remained immovably vertical. A minute or so of this, and Duffy changed his tactics. He released his pressure, let his arm fall back from midday to one o’clock, and then sharply reapplied the kick. The first two times he did this he got back to the vertical position with no difficulty, but couldn’t make any further progress. The third time he tried it, his arm remained stuck at one o’clock. The next time, it was pressed smartly down to two o’clock. The marmalade was only a couple of inches away. Duffy didn’t look at Mr Joyce. It was clearly the time for heroics, he decided, for the killer punch. He gathered his strength and surged. Half a second later his forearm was being mashed into the marmalade.

  Joyce got up, wiped the palm of his hand on the J cloth, and tossed it to Duffy.

  ‘I didn’t want to mess up that nice shirt of yours,’ he said.

  On their way to the door Joyce explained about the monthly newsletter and about next week’s march from Tower Hill. Duffy couldn’t get out of the house quickly enough, and gained a yard or so on Mr Joyce in the short corridor leading from the kitchen. He opened the door and turned to say goodbye—or if not goodbye, at least Fuck off. When he turned, he noticed that Mr Joyce was wearing his bowler hat again.

  ‘You know, there are some days when I feel quite normal,’ said Duffy.

  ‘Don’t let it worry you, love,’ replied Carol.

  While they were waiting for Duffy’s latest culinary creation—frozen pizza from Marks & Spencer—to cook, he told her about his visit to Ealing.

  ‘Lucky he didn’t keep his hat on while you were wrestling, Duffy,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’d have been able to handle it.’

  ‘Do you think I am normal?’

  ‘What’s normal? There isn’t any normal, is there? And if there was, no you wouldn’t be normal, course you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Oh.’ Suddenly, Duffy wanted very much to be normal, even if normal didn’t exist.

  ‘But you’re not crackers, if that’s what you’re asking. You’re not even odd. Not to me any more. I mean, you probably are odd, but I suppose I’ve got used to it.’

  Duffy took the pizzas out of the oven, and put the baking tray to soak before he sat down to eat.

  ‘Very good, Duffy. Delicious. I like the way you’ve arranged the bits of green pepper.’

  Duffy smiled, and accepted the compliment. They often played this game. He liked playing it. For himself, he thought he’d overdone the pizzas. The base was all crispy. Sure, it was meant to be crispy, and he’d cooked it for precisely the length of time it said on the box; but it was so crispy that when you cut into it with your knife bits of it went in all directions. Bits of it even went on the floor; and if there was one thing Duffy hated, it was food trodden into the floor. Not that you could exactly tread things into a tile floor, but you could certainly squash them on to it, which Duffy didn’t like, and you could also pick them up on your shoes and walk them into other rooms, which Duffy liked even less.

  ‘Ever heard of Charlie Magrudo?’

  ‘No. Should I have?’

  ‘No reason. He’s apparently some sort of legit villain around here.’

  ‘No. Too far out for West Central to know about him. Unless he was really big.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Carol didn’t really like hearing about Duffy’s jobs. He talked so litt
le about them that when he did she felt she ought to listen, because there was probably something worrying him; but she didn’t really like it. It stirred memories. Old memories of when they’d been colleagues at West Central; courting colleagues. And every so often, Duffy would ask her for a bit of help. Help which meant her breaking police regulations. She didn’t like that either. She didn’t like divided loyalties. She wished he’d got a job which was quite different, which had nothing to do with the Force. She wished he kept a pub—that was what some ex-coppers did. Except that the brewing companies probably weren’t looking for publicans whose careers in the Force had ended the way Duffy’s had. She hoped he wouldn’t ask her for help; if only because she knew she’d probably give in.

  ‘Oh, Duffy, by the way, I found out about lymph nodes.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Did he really want to know now? Put to the test, he wasn’t sure.

  ‘Yes, I asked someone at the station and they said to ask Dr Hawkins.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘They’re sort of clumps of things. Under your arms and in your neck and in your groin. That’s where they are.’

  ‘What are they for?’

  ‘I couldn’t really follow it, but they sounded sort of … useful, from what Dr Hawkins said.’

  ‘Did he say how big they’re meant to be?’

  ‘How big? No, I don’t think he did. I mean, I think they’re pretty small from what he was saying. Do you think you ought to see the doctor?’ Carol didn’t mention the word cancer, which had come into Dr Hawkins’ explanations.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I mean, if you’re worrying, I think you ought to see the doctor.’ By ‘worrying’, Carol meant ‘worrying more than usual’. If Duffy went to the doctor every time he worried, he might as well rent space in the surgery for a camp bed.

  Duffy knew he shouldn’t have asked about lymph nodes in the first place. That was always the trouble: you always found out just enough to make things worse, never enough to make things better. Still, at least he knew where these node things were now; that was one step forward. On the other hand, he didn’t know how big they were meant to be, so how could he tell if they were swollen? That was one step back. If you could actually feel them, did that mean they were swollen? Or did that mean they were normal, and that if they got any bigger, then they were swollen?

  Still, he wasn’t going to any doctor, thank you very much. He didn’t want them getting out the leper’s bell and packing him off to the Welsh mountains.

  ‘No, I’m not worrying, love, I’m fine. Really, I feel fine.’

  She looked as if she didn’t believe him, so he came round and bent over her and put his arm round her shoulders. He looked at her and smiled, and in a funny sort of way almost felt like kissing her; but they washed up instead. She washed, and he wiped; her wiping was still a bit hit-or-miss, in Duffy’s judgment, though her washing was fine. Very thorough.

  Carol had an early start the next morning, and by the time Duffy came to bed she was almost asleep. As he climbed in and settled down, he felt something sharp against his leg. He turned on the bedside light again and felt round the sheet a bit. He might have known. He might have known. A small piece of pizza crust. That’s exactly what he meant. He really would have to give the pizzas five minutes less the next time. There’s nothing wrong with soggy crust. People with false teeth must always cook it like that. Unless … unless you didn’t kill the bacteria properly if you didn’t cook it for the length of time they said on the box. Perhaps Dr Hawkins would know about that. He’d get Carol to ask him. He snuggled up to her back and half-curled round her.

  Duffy fell asleep quickly, and the dreams came quickly too. He saw Binyon standing on the bar at the Alligator wearing a black bra and knickers, suspender belt and black stockings. He saw yobboes marching down Layton Road carrying Union Jacks. He saw Binyon and Mr Joyce arm-wrestling. He saw himself keeping goal for the Reliables and every time he went to pick the ball out of the net it had turned into a soggy pizza. He saw Binyon again on the next barstool at the Alligator turning to him and saying, ‘The thing about you, Duffy, is that you’re a lymph node. You may pretend not to be, but that’s what you are.’ He saw Melvyn Prosser in his gold Rolls-Royce Corniche reversing over Danny Matson’s leg. He saw …

  He woke up suddenly. He was still curled close to Carol, but two things were different from when he’d gone to sleep. Two things had happened. He was sweating, that was the first thing. He touched his forehead with his fingers and thought, That, Duffy, is sweat. That is a night sweat.

  The second thing which had happened was that he had an erection. He didn’t believe this either, but a check with the same fingertips confirmed the fact. That, Duffy, he said to himself, is a hard cock. Remember? The first one to come out of hiding for years. With Carol, that is.

  There must be some explanation. Perhaps the two surprises were connected. Perhaps his cock was just a lymph node, and it was swollen now because he was going to die in a year or two of this terrible disease. But even so, that was definitely a hard cock.

  Thank Christ Carol was asleep.

  The next day was one of legwork and small chores. Bits and pieces stuff. He began by dropping round at Danny Matson’s digs to invite him down to The Knight Spot that evening. Danny Matson didn’t get many invitations, and even a few hours sitting in an old van was better than nothing.

  ‘They found my wallet, by the way. The coppers did.’

  ‘Oh yes? What did they take?’

  ‘Money. Credit card. There wasn’t much else. Lucky I didn’t have my Trevor Brooking photo in it. They might have taken that.’

  ‘Mmm, they might.’ Especially if they’d been Barnsley fans. ‘How’s the leg?’

  ‘Still there.’

  ‘Keep laughing.’

  Then it was back to Layton Road, doing the houses in the opposite order.

  At number 57 Mrs Davis answered the door again in her pinafore.

  ‘Oh Wayne,’ she called out on seeing Duffy, ‘it’s that fellow from the Chronicle again.’ Suddenly she had disappeared and a skinhead in braces took her place. He pushed his face close to Duffy’s: either he had bad eyes, or he liked to greet visitors with a head-butt.

  ‘Bugger off, you. You right upset me mam with all that talk of winning the Lucky Numbers.’

  ‘Is your dad in? No, all right, forget it,’ Duffy added hurriedly, as the skinhead visibly pondered the need for hostile action.

  At number 48 Arthur still wasn’t in, and the voice behind the chain gave him even less time than before.

  At number 37 Mr Bullivant bounced to the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mr Bullivant, it’s me again.’

  ‘I can see that, laddie.’

  ‘It’s just a couple more questions the office wanted me to check out with you.’

  ‘Well, check them out then,’ said Mr Bullivant, sneering at the phrase.

  ‘Er, how long would you say this trouble’s been going on?’

  ‘Since the day they built the ground.’

  ‘But it’s got worse in the last—what? three years? one year? three months?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, which, Mr Bullivant?’

  ‘Yes all three.’

  ‘I see. Now, Mr Bullivant, assuming you win your injunction, that might not necessarily be the end of the matter. The club could appeal. How far are you prepared to go with this action?’

  ‘As far as we have to.’

  ‘All the way, you mean.’

  ‘As I said.’

  ‘Mr Bullivant, is the street behind you on this one?’

  ‘No it’s right in front of me, silly bugger. Yes of course it is.’

  ‘Have they—had a whip-round for you?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, it could cost you a lot of money. If the club fought it all the way.’

  ‘That’s our business. Whose side are you on?’

  ‘I’m just trying to find out what’s
happening. Mr Bullivant, I wondered if perhaps you had a sponsor.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, is there someone who’s sympathetic to what you’re doing and who’s said he’ll cover any expenses you may incur by bringing this action?’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell you if there was.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you?’

  ‘Are you what they call a cub reporter?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose I am.’

  ‘Thought so. Still haven’t written a word in your notebook in two visits. No wonder there’s so many lies in the bloody papers. Good day to you.’

  Home; and then a call to Ken Marriott. Could Duffy drop by the Chronicle to give him the story? Sure. And in exchange, could Ken wangle him into the newspaper’s library for ten minutes or so? No problem.

  At the Chronicle the ‘library’ turned out to be a false room built into the open-plan office by setting up four walls of filing cabinets from floor to ceiling. Ken found him the file on Charlie Magrudo and left him alone with it.

  There were about a dozen items altogether, covering fifteen years. Each had been cut out and glued to a sheet of foolscap paper. Apart from one substantial profile, most of the items were small, LOCAL BUSINESSMAN DONATES SUNSHINE COACH TO VARIETY CLUB and NEW SUPERMARKET TO BE BUILT ON SCHEDULE, PROMISES CONTRACTOR: that sort of thing. From the clippings, Duffy assembled a picture of a hard-working, home-loving, socially aware, charitable, generous and concerned local businessman who was equally loyal to his employees, his family, the Church and the Rotary Club. From time to time other journalists wandered in to use the library. One looked over Duffy’s shoulder.

  ‘Charlie Magrudo, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why are you interested in him?’

  ‘Oh, he’s trying to get a contract up in Islington, and we’d heard he wasn’t the cleanest thing that ever drew breath.’