Chapter 42. McChavs
Modern additions to British colloquial language have led to them being labelled “chavs”. Whilst not an entirely accurate comparison, the closest American equivalent would probably be “rednecks” or “trailer-trash”. Either way, in England, you’ll know one when you see one, and Birmingham has its fair share. Sprightly folk, aged anywhere between young enough to make your toes curl, and old enough to know better. Invariably dressed in an ironic blend of sportswear (ironic since their scrawny bodies and cannabis dulled eyes are a clear giveaway that competitive leisure pursuits are the last thing on their corrupt minds) and jewellery so big and vulgar, it wouldn’t look lost in a low-budget Henry VIII theatre production.
A mile up the road from the Institution, the chavs were running amok in the car park of a McDonald’s restaurant in Wylde Green this evening. Kate and Adam nursed a watery tea each at a table next to the window, beneath a huge sign advertising the restaurant’s latest attempt to sex-up the concept of what was basically a burger, by preceding a ludicrously random word with the letters “Mc…”. It was “McRodeo” in this instance. Adam took regular, nervous glances at the youths outside the window, long enough to remain weary of them, but not long enough that it might invite the classic chav greeting of, “What the fook you looking at, ya prick?”. He rightly feared that the pane of glass between them would not provide sufficient sanctuary from them, should he catch their eye. The youngest looking of the bunch was busy letting a green McDonald’s dustbin feel the full force of his boot, presumably for no other reason than the fact that it was there. His colleagues selectively heckled passers-by that looked vulnerable enough not to retaliate. Female ones would receive a charming invite for sexual intercourse, whilst a few unfortunate males that crossed their path were treated to the challenge of a fight. One man carrying his food and drink purchases across the car park got a cigarette end flicked at his head, just for failing to confirm whether he thought he was “hard”, when he was less than politely asked the question by the chavs. He timidly scampered back to the safety of his vehicle, pulling away with a screech, as he sped away into the misty night without looking back.
- We should get out of here Katey!
- Don’t worry about them. They’re just kids. Someone will send them on their way in a minute.
- What’s their problem anyway?
- It’s just what they do….kids…. you know. Cause trouble. Have fun. Tear the place up a bit. They’re just learning about themselves.
- Learning about themselves? You’re a clever girl, I’ll give you that, but you do talk some shit sometimes, Katey.
- Whatever! You wanted somewhere warm to get yourself together before we head back, so I found you somewhere.
Adam looked thoughtful as he dangled the teabag on its string above the cup, letting the drops of concentrated tea fall into his drink, darkening its overall colour.
- So where did you get the money from for these?
- What, the teas?
- Well yeah, the teas. Or anything really. How did you get money for anything at all is what I’m asking.
- Harrison.
- Harrison? What? Is pocket-money one of the privileges you get for being their favourite girl as well now then?
- I stole it from him if you must know. And I’m not their favourite girl, Adam.
- Mmm…. Yeah, sure.
The restaurant Manager had caught sight of the trouble unfolding on his car park now and was watching the tearaways terrorising his customers. He went for the door, then appeared to think better of it, simply shaking his head in disgust and returning to his station.
- So these counterparts….
Adam said the word ‘counterparts’ in a mocking tone, as if he were saying the word ‘gaboobledumplin’ for the first time.
- …. So everyone in the world has one, right?
- Not necessarily. Not everyone they’ve tried it on has been able to lead them to their counterpart.
- But they could still be out there, right?
- It’s possible.
- And when our counterpart dies, we die?
- Basically, yeah.
- So answer me this then Katey: Why hasn’t anyone noticed before now that people are croaking it in pairs? Millions of people die every second in the world, so….
- It’s not millions of people every second Adam, that’s ridiculous!
- Well, ok, but it’s a lot, isn’t it! So why hasn’t anyone noticed yet that every time someone kicks the bucket, someone else dies with them at exactly the same time? It’d be bloody obvious wouldn’t it?
- Well, no, not exactly. The world’s a big place.
Adam frowned deeply, as he sipped from his tea again. He was trying to compute what the size of the world had to do with anything, but was coming up blank. Kate continued.
- So if that boy right there were to die now….
Kate pointed at one of the hooligans outside the window, who was busy shouting obscenities through the drive-through speaker, mainly relating to the sexual exploits of the Mother of whoever was on the other end of the line.
- …. his counterpart would die too, but his counterpart might live in say, Australia or somewhere. So who would ever make the link between the two deaths?
Adam necked the rest of his tea and turned his cup upside down on the table as if to confirm its emptiness.
- But what if he didn’t?
- Didn’t what?
- Didn’t live in Australia. What if he lived in England? What if he lived just up the road? What if that boy dropped down dead now and his counterpart happened to be, say….
Adam scanned the car park.
- ….That boy there!
He pointed at another little cretin a few feet from drive-through-speaker-boy, who appeared to be urinating into a nearby flower bed.
- What if one got hit by a car and then the other one dropped down dead for no apparent reason?
- Chance would be a fine thing.
Adam chuckled in agreement, before quickly realising his line of questioning had been derailed.
- But seriously, Katey. Surely someone would spot that. What would the cause of death be for the other chap? Counterparteritis?
Adam chuckled again, this time at his own joke.
- It doesn’t work like that.
- But it’s possible, right? They could be standing right next to each other when one of them dies.
- That’s not how it works Adam.
The store Manager was prowling the inside perimeter of the restaurant now, clearly reluctant to engage with the mob, but duty-bound not to ignore them. An awkward position.
- Eddy, go in the office and ring the police.
Eddy, a young, spotty-faced cashier looked up at his boss with wide eyes. Startled at the sudden dramatic deviation from his normal serving duties. Frozen with indecision, as the customer he was about to serve waited expectantly to be dealt with. The Manager raised his voice.
- Now Eddy!
As Eddy scarpered off into the back, the Manager walked over to the window nearest the drive-through lane and gave the pane of glass three dull thuds with the heel of his hand. The chav closest to him looked up, startled, before his wide-eyed shock quickly dissipated and was replaced by a sneering look of confidence, which only increased as he turned to beckon his mates to come over and support him.
- What’s your problem dickhead? You got summat to say to me nobhead?
The chav’s voice was muffled through the glass window, but this only served to make it sound more sinister and threatening. With each member of his gang that arrived from across the car park, the lad’s confidence grew yet more. By the time they were all there, laughing, sneering and encouraging the conflict, he was more or less invincible in his own eyes.
The Manager’s fear was visible, but he was the captain of a ship under attack and was therefore obliged to show some stout in defending it. He pointed a finger away into the distance, doing a cross betwe
en a whisper and a murmur, as he screwed his face up into a snarl to convey his anger through the window.
- Piss off you little shits!
The chavs were buoyed by the fact that they’d finally got a reaction out of someone. The ringleader spread his arms and legs apart in a star-jump pose that oozed cockiness and seemed to non-verbally ask what the Manager planned to do about the fact that he refusing to move. His friends laughed hysterically, some patting him on the back, proud of their hero. One made a theatrical gesture towards the window that appeared to resemble him masturbating a giant penis. Another turned around, pulling down his Adidas tracksuit bottoms to reveal his pasty, white backside to the restaurant. An appetising site for anyone that in the restaurant that was tucking into a McRodeo burger.
As the sound of the police car drew closer, the boys sensed that their window of opportunity for making their mark was closing fast. The way a boxer tries to land a later flurry of punches to impress the judges before the final bell sounds, the boys stepped up the aggression a notch for one last rally of nastiness. The ringleader landed a flat foot onto the window of the restaurant, which shook with a thud, but stood firm. The flowerbed urinater produced a black marker pen from somewhere and wrote the letters ‘i-n-g-e’ after the McDonald’s ‘M’ logo that was stained into the window to form the word ‘Minge’. Others generally bobbed up and down with excitement, shouting irrelevant obscenities as they retreated out of sight, just as the police car pulled on to the car park, marking the end of this unfortunate episode.
Kate and Adam had been unhelpful spectators throughout the whole incident, and wisely so. Whilst Kate was a gutsy little thing, neither of them were built for physical confrontation, but more importantly, they didn’t have time to be caught up in any sort of kafuffle, given Adam’s impending situation.
- Actually, I think you’re right. We should get moving.
Kate began putting her coat on. She looked more harassed and uneasy than Adam had ever seen her before.
- I dunno Katey. I think I’d rather stay here now. Them lunatics are roaming about the streets now. The way my luck’s going, we’ll probably run into them.
- And if we don’t get your arse back to the Institution pronto, then they’re going to kill your counterpart, Lionel. Then you won’t have to worry about getting beat up by a bunch of school kids, because you’ll be dead too!
Adam bit his lip, as he contemplated the idea of a man being put to his death halfway across the world because of him. He wasn’t sure whether he was more concerned for Lionel’s life or his own. Either way, he knew Kate was right. He stood from his chair and headed towards the exit. As they walked through the car park and onto the main road, Adam’s head filled with a sudden pins and needles sensation, his centre of gravity shifting and his vision becoming patchy, before it began to blur and he felt overwhelming nausea invade his body. Kate grabbed him before he fell and led him to a wall that surrounded a block of residential flats on the main road. Any passing motorist who saw the pair of them on the road side would have mistaken them for a pair of down-and-outs.
- I need a fucking hit Katey man. I feel weak. It’s killing me. Do you have more of that money still?
- Get a grip, you clown. We don’t have time for that. If we get you back there, they’ll give you your pills.
- No they won’t. They’ll beat me up for running away. I want gear Katey.
- Bullshit Adam! And where the fuck are you expecting me to get it from even if I wanted to? McDonald’s?
- Them boys in the car park looked like they know the score. They’d probably sort us out.
- What? The same boys you were shit scared of a few minutes ago? Come on! You’re not making sense. We need to get walking. Can you stand up?
- What if I don’t want to go back there.
- You’ll die Adam.
- What if I just want to take my chances?
- Come on babe. Please listen to me. What else can I tell you that will make you believe me? They are probably frog marching Lionel to the slaughter house right now over in Ducie. Lionel is your counterpart. When they kill him, you will die!
- How will they kill him?
- That I don’t know. It doesn’t matter how anyway. The point is, if he dies, you die! You two are linked in spirit! Even if you don’t care enough about yourself, do it for him! Don’t let an innocent stranger die because of you Adam.
- What, like you would have let Daniella die if I hadn’t have stopped you hanging yourself by the neck from a rope that day? I mean, you two are linked in spirit too aren’t you?
Silence. Adam was beginning to piece things together now and his latest discovery hit her like a kick to the solar plexus. He was right; she was a hypocrite. She had no right to preach about caring for the lives of innocent strangers, when she had come within seconds of killing herself and her counterpart with one swift and selfish act. Kate had no defence.
- Yes. Exactly like that. You’re a hero Adam. You didn’t just save me that day. You saved Daniella too. She’ll never know that, but….
Adam interrupted in a way that would be considered rude under any other circumstances, but they were way beyond the point of niceties and normal conversation etiquette.
- You didn’t answer my question earlier.
- What question?
- You said it didn’t work like that. That two counterparts couldn’t possibly be standing next to each other when one of them died. You said that’s not how it works. Why isn’t it how it works Katey?
Kate’s heart sank at the realisation that she had more explaining to do. She’d forgotten about that part. The proximity factor. How could she have forgotten that part? It was after all the proximity factor that had nearly killed her when all this started. Caused her to descend into an episode of uncontrollable fits, lose control of her mind and ultimately to spiral into a vortex of unconsciousness. She thought she was dying at the time. She was certain of it. She could still remember that urge she had to get out of the Institution. To get as far away from the place as possible. She hadn’t understood why she needed to get away, she just knew she had to. But she couldn’t. She was stuck there in the Institution. Her sanity slipping away.
The doctors put her breakdown down to the drug trials. Or perhaps the long term effects of the heroin. Maybe even an underlying medical condition or a critical defect in her psychological make-up. It was only much later that they would discover that Kate’s sudden bouts of fits were to do with the fact that her counterpart Daniella Diaz was getting closer. Too close. Somewhere 35,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean on an Airbus A330 passenger jet bound for Charles to Gaulle Airport in France, from Santiago Chile, Daniella drifted closer to Kate. And the closer she got, the more both girls began to deteriorate.
Kate took a deep breath and began once again to try to explain the impossible to Adam.
Ducie Page 43
