The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit

by Graham Joyce

  THE FRIDAY PRIZEGIVING and Farewell Show came and went. It was led expertly by Abdul-Shazam in his red fez. He was good. He had the audience eating from his hand. He expertly set up his gags (jokes were called “gags” by show-biz people) with terrific timing. He improvised with the names of the prizewinners and nothing fell flat. I got to help with some of his magic act, around which the prizegiving was structured. It was exciting to see the simple mechanisms at large, the false bottoms, the fake linings of the magic act. Rather than stealing away the enchantment, this insight only made it more fascinating. With light and shadow everything worked. Kids and adults alike were drawn onstage and induced to stick their hand in a velvet bag or under a steel blade. Their trust was uncanny. They abdicated all responsibility. They let the authority of the stage take over.

  The power wielded under the arc lamps by Tony Abdul-Shazam was a little bit disturbing. Only I and his other stage assistants were close enough to see the perspiration that went into his act. Everyone who came onstage was given a baton of rock candy they could carry away with them, a multicolored magic wand. Yes, when they got back to their seats it would be nothing more than a stick of sugar in a cellophane wrapper, but by then it was someone else’s turn to be onstage, blinking, dazzled by the limelight.

  The Prizegiving and Farewell Show was eventually followed by the Friday Revue, and I noticed that Luca’s attitude had changed. He breezed in before the show and was polite, he greeted everyone, but he was professional and distant, flinty even. Then he shut himself in his dressing room. As soon as the last dancer had high-kicked the finale and the show was done, he bid a cheery “Buona notte” and was out and off the premises sharpish. He showed no more interest in staying behind for a drink. I was disappointed. I was looking to learn about the world and I wanted to hear more of his wisdom. He was an artist—not like Picasso but still a true artist, living by his talent. His path was different to that of other men, and I was disposed to learn something from him. Colin had put a stop to all of that with a single burst of hair-trigger violence and brutality.

  When the curtain went down on the revue, I was scheduled to work the evening cash bingo session, and after that I was free. I had a couple of beers in the giant Slowboat Bar, so called for reasons I never did discover. I laughed and joked with a couple of the scary kitchen girls, but after my conversation with Nikki I had started watching the staff, too. I saw one of the barmen under challenge from a holidaymaker who claimed to have been short-changed. I wondered how often that happened.

  I’d completed my first week. I crashed into my bed, and for the first time since I’d arrived, I slept soundly.

  5

  THE WAY FORWARD WILL REQUIRE THE DISMANTLING OF ALL STATE APPARATUS

  I’d been wearing whites and a candy-striped blazer for a week solid and it was good to get back into civilian gear, which in my case was a pair of bell-bottom blue jeans and a white T-shirt. I rose early to have a lardy breakfast in the canteen, and as I crossed the resort all I could see were suitcases lined up outside the wooden chalets as cleaners tried to get in and holidaymakers and their families tried to get out. It was the ritual of the Saturday changeover.

  The only thing I could do to find a little breathing space was to go for a walk on the beach. With everyone occupied in the changeover, the beach was deserted. It was going to be another hot day. A tunnel gave access from the resort to the beach wall, and when I got down to the water I took off my sandals and carried them, feeling the warm sand and shingle between my toes.

  I still didn’t like it. I’d heard all those people talk about how they loved to walk barefoot on the beach. The fact is it gave me the creeps; or even worse, it triggered a mysterious anxiety. I brushed the sand off my feet and put my sandals back on, and then I wiped my hands on my denims. I moved back up the beach so that I could tread the reassuring pebbles.

  I started walking north, toward Ingoldmells. The sand settles out in banks at angles to the shore, and when you get past the housing and developments there are impressive dunes. I’d read that the Vikings found natural harbors behind these now-dry dunes and I thought I might take a look. Way up the beach I saw two figures sitting, huddled together on a railway tie that had been deposited on the beach by a high tide. The sun at my right hand was a yellow blister over the water and the bright sunlight sparkled electric blue on one of the figures.

  It was the man in the blue suit I’d seen on the day of the sand-castle competition. He was hugging a child—presumably the boy I’d seen. Maybe the blue suit was made of some synthetic material, because its threads caught the sun’s rays and darted light. He had a rope coiled over his shoulder.

  But then the sun darkened and I felt dizzy. My breath came short. I heard a groan from way off—way out to sea—and I felt an unaccountable panic, triggered by something very old shifting deep inside me. I looked up. The man and the boy had turned to look at me, perhaps because I was acting oddly. But their faces were in shadow. It made no sense. They were turned full on to the sun, but their faces were gray and flat and smooth like beach pebbles, almost in silhouette. Even though their faces were indistinct, they peered back at me with suspicion, as if I somehow meant to harm them or as if they meant to harm me. I felt an irrational wave of panic and revulsion. My teeth chattered.

  The sun appeared to come out again, and I had to blink, because I wasn’t looking at a man and a boy at all. I could see the railway tie they’d been sitting on, and an old blue coat had been washed up and wrapped around it. I’d somehow hallucinated the pair in the morning light. I paced up the beach to the sea-blasted railway tie. It was festooned with the usual debris: a bit of rope, a plastic bottle, some dried bladder wrack, the old coat hugging the wood. But of the man and the boy there was no sign.

  I cast around, still looking for them. The empty beach was now a hostile, echoing place. A sudden stench came off the water and turned my guts. I told myself what I’d seen was all a trick of the light. But I didn’t believe that. Not for one second.

  I recovered and moved on. I glanced back a few times to see if I could catch sight of anything, until finally I had to challenge myself not to keep looking over my shoulder. Now I didn’t feel at all like going to explore the lonely dunes. Instead I walked on for about two miles. There was a very faint breeze coming off the water, and the bad odor went away. I’d been holding my breath against it. Instead, salt air and the mild electrical charge of the gentle waves was something I could inhale again. I walked on, starting to feel better, with the sun rising steadily over the water.

  AT MIDDAY I stood outside the main gates of the resort, waiting for Tony. I knew he drove a smart Wolseley Saloon. Instead, a two-tone Hillman Minx pulled up, with a cheerful pip on the horn that was clearly directed at me. I noticed two figures in the back but I couldn’t see the driver. The passenger door opened.

  I was astonished to see Colin behind the wheel. He was wearing a dark suit and a blue tie. I hesitated.

  He leaned across the seat. He tilted his head sideways and closed one eye. “Get in, son.”

  I climbed into the passenger seat. Colin set off without a word, and when I turned to check out the passengers in the back I recognized a lad from the kitchen. I didn’t know his name. He had buckteeth that shaped his mouth into a permanent sneer. The other passenger I didn’t know at all. He had his head back on the seat upholstery and, with his eyes closed and his mouth open, appeared to be dozing.

  Pretty soon we were heading away from the coast into the flat, open countryside of Lincolnshire. I didn’t want to stare at Colin, but he looked very different in a suit and tie. I wouldn’t say he looked neat: He was one of those men for whom even a close shave can never quite get rid of a blue shadow. He caught me looking.

  “Nice car,” I said, wanting to break the uncomfortable silence.

  “That’s ’coz it’s British,” the lad from the kitchen said.

  “Where are we going anyway?” I said.

  “Fifteen minutes, twenty at to
ps,” Colin said. “Most traffic west will be goin’ another route.” It wasn’t an answer to my question but I gathered that it was the only answer I was going to get.

  Colin had scrubbed up and I could smell something like carbolic soap on him. That and a metalwork smell. He switched on the car radio. A local news reporter was banging on about the unusual drought conditions. A hosepipe ban had been introduced and several grass fires and woodland fires had scorched areas of land in southern England. Colin cursed the government, as if they had engineered the drought conditions to blight the country.

  “It’s the mad scientists,” said the boy in the back with bad teeth, “puttin’ ice seeds in the clouds.”

  “Oh fuck off with that,” Colin said, and he snapped off the radio.

  After he’d put another few miles on the clock, without taking his eyes off the road Colin said, “Where from?”

  It took me a couple of seconds to realize he was asking me a question. I hardly finished answering him before he asked me another question.

  “What’s yer dad do?”

  I told him about Ken’s construction business.

  He sniffed noisily. “Movver working, is she?”

  “No.”

  He had an odd style of driving, tucking his chin into his chest and looking up from under his brow. It reminded me of a boxer’s defensive stance. We drove through the Lincolnshire countryside with all the windows of the Minx wound down. The land was dusty and parched and we occasionally passed roadside signs: DANGER: YOU ARE ENTERING A DROUGHT AREA, CONSERVE WATER. But somehow it didn’t concern me and I had faith that every natural order would soon be restored.

  Eventually we drew up at a pub with a thatched roof. It was called the Fighting Cocks and it had a lovely beer garden with a tall slide and a play area for children. Though there was no breath of wind to move the flag, a smart Union Jack hung from a freshly painted white pole. A number of cars were in the car park, but Colin stopped at the entrance.

  “Out,” said Colin. “See you inside.” I made to open the door but Colin put his leathery hand on my arm. “Not you.”

  The other two lads got out as directed and hurried into the pub. I noticed that they were both wearing highly polished Doc Martens lace-up boots. Even though it was ridiculous footwear in this heat, it made me feel exposed in my open-toed sandals. My stomach fluttered. Colin eased into the car park at the back of the pub where a steward beckoned him into a reserved space. Two tall and rather impressive men in dark suits were leaning on a highly polished Bentley. They were exchanging a few words and both were smoking cigars.

  We got out of the car and Colin walked over to the smoking men. I assumed I should follow. Colin shook hands with each of them in turn. If they noticed me loitering in the background, they didn’t show it.

  One of the men, completely bald and with a very thick neck, said, “Mills has cried off.”

  “Oh the cunt,” Colin said.

  “About two hours ago, what do you think of that?” said the second man. Unlike his colleague he had a thick head of black hair, swept back and fixed with Brylcreem.

  “That’s what happens,” the thick-necked man said, “when you give people like that the opportunity.”

  Colin rolled his neck as if to relieve some muscle stress. “Tony here?”

  “He’s in the pub,” the second man said. “But he says he don’t want to do it.”

  “He’ll do it,” Colin said. “He’ll warm ’em up ’til Carter gets here. No worries.”

  At last the bald man acknowledged my dithering presence. “Who’s this then?”

  “This is David,” Colin said. “Student. Just here to take a look at us.”

  The man held out his hand and gave me a warm handshake. “Good to have you here, David. I’m Norman Prosser, and you are very welcome among us. Student, are you? Well good for you, lad. We need more students. You see, we need to get among the students and explain properly what we are about.” He took a step back and looked me up and down. “If Colin spotted you, you must be all right. You look smart, handsome, and you look the part.”

  What part I was supposed to look in my T-shirt and sandals I had no idea. But then the second man with the oiled hair stepped forward and gave me a very firm handshake—too hard—and told me his name. “John Talbot.” Though he didn’t say any more, he looked hard into my eyes as if to prove some kind of point.

  We went into the pub and as I blinked into the darkness of the bar after the brilliant light outside, I felt Norman Prosser’s hand in the small of my back gently steering me. “Now let’s buy you a drink, young man. What will it be? A fine single malt or a pint of ale?” He spoke like he’d already adopted me. “And you just remember the name Norman Prosser and you come to me for anything, you understand? Any problem, however big or small, come to me. Because once you’re in our circle, we look after each other.”

  Colin, crowding me on the other side, winked at me. I had no idea what the wink meant. It did nothing to put me at ease.

  “Can I be honest with you, David, can I? Do you want a cigar by the way?”

  “Thanks, I don’t smoke.”

  I was given a pint of bitter and a glass of malt whiskey, even though I hadn’t asked for the latter.

  “The truth is we don’t get as many students as we’d like. This is because we get a very bad press. Those newspaper people, they hate the working classes and they want to keep them down. So they misrepresent us over and over. But we do want to get among the students, so I’d like to get your views. But not now because I’m going through.” Prosser nodded to his left and gathered up his own beer and whiskey. His cigar he left smoking in the ashtray on the bar.

  I glanced around. The pub wasn’t busy. A few elderly couples were enjoying a lunchtime drink and chicken-in-a-basket type meals; a pair of young lovers were holding hands and flirting, oblivious to the world. I couldn’t see anything distinctive about the place.

  “Bring those,” Colin said. “We’re in the pavilion at the back.”

  I picked up my drinks and he led me through an echoing corridor that ran behind the bar. We passed into a large concert-type room illuminated by harsh electric strip lighting, and there it was immediately apparent as to where I’d been brought. Though I think I’d already guessed, I just hadn’t wanted to be right. Because Tony had been the source of the original invitation, part of me still clung to some preposterous idea that I’d been brought to an exclusive entertainments-business elite, perhaps a meeting of the Magic Circle or even an afternoon strip club.

  Well there were no strippers on show. The entire room was decked in the flags of the British union, the same flag that looked so cheerful and harmless and reassuring hanging from a painted pole outside the pub. Every inch of wall space was draped with the red, white, and blue. At one end of the room was a platform with tables and a microphone at the ready. These tables were draped instead with the white background and red cross of the flag of St. George. The wall immediately behind the platform was also decorated with the flag of St. George.

  About sixty or seventy plastic chairs were drawn up in neat rows before the platform and most of these were already occupied, mainly by middle-aged males, many of whom wore a collar and tie on this hottest of days, but there was a fair scattering of women there, too. In some of the seats, but also patrolling the room, were a number of young skinheads in bomber jackets and high-laced Doc Martens. They had a paramilitary swagger. It was obvious that they regarded themselves as foot soldiers or as some kind of unofficial security force.

  Some years earlier, when I was thirteen, I walked home from a youth club happy at having got my first kiss from a girl. I had to pass by a chip shop and a group of skinheads in Docs and braces were laughing and joking outside. For no apparent reason they attacked me—maybe I made the mistake of making eye contact with one. There were five of them. Kicked to the ground, I cradled my head in my arms as I felt the boots going in all over my body. I was rescued by an elderly lady who told them the
y should be ashamed. I got to my feet and limped home. I managed to hide my bruises from my parents, but from that day I always treated any skinhead in the same way you would regard a rabid dog.

  One of these skinheads immediately approached me peddling some publication pitched between a magazine and a newspaper. It was called Spearhead. I became aware of a lot of eyes on me. My clothes were all wrong. The long hair, the open-toed sandals. Whatever the “other side” might be, I was pretty sure I resembled it. Some self-preservation instinct kicked in and I found myself digging in my pocket for a few coins. The skinhead became friendly and let me know that someone was going around with a great pamphlet about how we should support the Welsh nationalists’ campaign of burning holiday homes. I said I’d look out for it and he gave me a wink. Colin had disappeared and something was about to start so I quickly took a seat.

  Of course I was furious with myself for being so naïve. If someone suggests that you follow them, your initial question should be: Where to? You don’t just go along with the first person who charms you into following them. Or do you? I think that’s what I’d done pretty much all my life. I still think that it’s what most people do, whether we are talking about social activities, or about politics, or about falling in love.

  After a short delay in proceedings, the two men whose hands I had just shaken in the car park took their places on the platform. I noticed one chair remained empty. Then a familiar figure leaped onto the stage.

  It was Tony from the holiday resort. Just like Colin he’d found a suit and tie for the event. He blew into a microphone to check it was working and then launched into a relaxed welcoming speech, saying how good it was to see so many old friends and so many new faces, too. He came down from the stage and strolled about the place, smiling, winking, and shaking hands with one or two people on the front row without breaking his patter. Then he effortlessly segued into a few Paki jokes.

  They were new jokes and he was very funny. He easily drew laughs from the audience and I found it impossible not to laugh with them. An edgy joke about the Jews followed and that went down very well, too. At some point a third man arrived and without fuss took his place on the platform. I assumed this to be the man they’d referred to as Carter.