The Last King of Brighton

by Peter Guttridge

  Elaine’s eyes welled.

  ‘How did it happen?’

  Charlie waved at Hathaway.

  ‘You obviously know the story so well, Johnny – why don’t you tell it?’

  Hathaway looked from his friend to his girlfriend – her attention entirely on Charlie.

  Hathaway’s voice was flat.

  ‘Charlie’s brother – Roy – was with him in Lewes one day guarding a bonfire. Other kids would try to set fire to bonfires before the fifth of November for a lark, so you had to keep an eye on them. Charlie and his mate – I’ve forgotten his name . . .’

  ‘Kevin,’ Charlie said after a beat, watching Hathaway as Elaine watched him. ‘You met him at the Snowdrop.’

  ‘Kevin and Charlie were freezing their asses off. They went down the street to a café to get a cup of tea out of the wind. They left Roy behind.’

  ‘Wasn’t he cold too?’ Elaine said.

  ‘Not for long,’ Charlie said.

  Elaine reared up and put her arms round him.

  ‘Oh Jesus, that was such a bloody stupid thing to say. I’m so sorry.’ She kissed him on the face, and again. And again.

  Hathaway watched. Charlie’s eyes were fixed on him over Elaine’s shoulder. Hathaway took another long toke. Elaine looked back at him.

  ‘Bonfires all had dens inside them back then,’ Hathaway said. ‘Secret spaces. Roy was in the bonfire.’

  Hathaway reached over with the spliff. Charlie took it, looked at it.

  ‘Someone set the bonfire alight,’ he said.

  Hathaway lay back. He heard Elaine sob. He closed his eyes.

  Hathaway lay on his back, lost in the drug. Christ, it was strong. He was boiling hot but he couldn’t raise the energy to pull his roll-neck down. He drifted in and out of the room. He rolled on to his side. Elaine and Charlie were wrapped round each other on the bed, faces plastered together, Charlie’s hand up her skirt, her hip slowly rolling.

  Hathaway watched, dope-befuddled. Time passed. Then:

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Hey, Charlie.’

  Charlie, blurry, disengaged enough to look at Hathaway.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Hathaway said.

  Charlie looked puzzled for a moment. Elaine was oblivious, rubbing her leg along Charlie’s body.

  ‘What does it look like?’ Charlie finally said, his voice thick.

  Hathaway drifted. He looked again.

  ‘Elaine? Elaine?’

  Elaine tilted her head back. Her eyes were all dope and lust.

  ‘It’s cool, Johnny,’ she said, her voice throaty.

  She gasped as Charlie pulled her skirt up to her waist. Her knickers were down, stretched taut across her thighs. Charlie winked grotesquely.

  ‘Hey, Johnny,’ he said slowly. ‘What number is jealousy?’

  Hathaway thought he flipped Charlie the bird.

  ‘Fuck you,’ he said, or thought he did.

  Charlie grinned.

  ‘What number is love?’

  Hathaway, woozy, started to get up. Got tangled in the kaftan.

  ‘I’m warning you, Charlie—’

  ‘What colour is despair?’ Charlie said.

  When Hathaway came round he was alone in the room. He was lying on the floor beside the bed on which Elaine and Charlie had been entangled. He rolled over and vomited on the carpet.

  His head thumped as he got to his feet. He dragged off the kaftan and dropped it on the floor. He staggered out of the room and through a sea of tangled bodies. He clung to the banister as he walked down the four flights of stairs. What the fuck had he taken?

  Charlie with Elaine. He couldn’t believe it. She’d always gone on about free love and being free, and he’d always wondered whether she messed around with the dorks she hung out with and the actors on the film sets. But Charlie?

  He found his car and drove carefully to his flat. He half-expected Elaine to be waiting outside. She wasn’t. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He put ice in a long glass and poured himself a Cinzano. He added lemonade. He turned on the stereo. There was a record already on the turntable. Hendrix. That would do.

  He walked across to the long window and dropped into the chair, sticking his feet up on the wall. He sipped his drink as he looked out over the promenade and down to his father’s premises on the end of the West Pier. There were lights on. Somebody was having a bad time.

  He took a longer swig of his drink, rolling the viscous liquid around his mouth before swallowing it. He was wondering what to do about Elaine and Charlie. On the one hand he was into free love too. On the other . . .

  He woke at dawn with a cricked neck from sleeping in the chair and a dry, dry mouth. His glass lay on its side, its contents spilled over the carpet. The needle was butting against the album label. He lifted it and put it down on the outer rim. ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, live and loud. The quality wasn’t great – the album was a bootleg – but Hathaway liked it. The telephone rang.

  He picked it up, his empty glass in his other hand. His father.

  ‘Get over here.’

  When Hathaway reached the end of the pier he could see through the office window that Charlie was standing by his father’s desk. He stopped for a moment, considering this. His blood rising.

  He entered the room quickly and went straight at Charlie.

  ‘You sod,’ he said as he swung.

  The blow never connected as Hathaway felt himself yanked back, spun round and plonked in a chair. The chair was on rollers and he rolled back until it collided with the wall. Sean Reilly was standing over him.

  His father remained seated behind his desk.

  ‘Your point being, son?’ he said.

  ‘That dick nicked my girl.’

  Charlie shrugged.

  ‘It’s the sixties, man. Swing a little.’

  ‘At the moment,’ Dennis Hathaway said, ‘that’s irrelevant.’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘Well, we have an emergency. By the name of Cuthbert.’

  Hathaway remembered the lights on the previous night.

  ‘You brought him here yesterday?’

  He noticed for the first time how haggard his father looked from being up all night.

  ‘Aside from being a pain in the arse, he’s threatening to grass on me.’

  ‘About what?’

  Dennis Hathaway stood and beckoned his son to follow him into the storeroom.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What do you think? About the Great Train Robbery, of course.’

  Hathaway stared at his father. He’d sussed there had been some involvement in the robbery but he hadn’t know what.

  Cuthbert sagged against the rope that held him to a wheelchair. His feet and lower legs were encased in cement inside a tin tub balanced on the footrest. His face was bloodied, his nose splashed at a grotesque angle over his cheek. Dennis Hathaway walked towards him and kicked him in the face. Hathaway was sure he heard Cuthbert’s cheekbone crack.

  Dennis Hathaway started singing as he circled Cuthbert.

  ‘There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza . . .’

  He hit Cuthbert across the side of the head with a block of wood and continued his circuit.

  ‘There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza.’ Kick. ‘An arsehole.’

  Cuthbert was still breathing, as best he could, but Hathaway could see bloody gums and a swollen tongue. The light had gone from behind his eyes.

  ‘Dad, why—?’

  ‘Because he’s scum.’

  His father circled and kicked, circled and kicked. Tommy came into the back of the room. Whispered something to Reilly. Reilly stepped forward, touched Dennis Hathaway on the shoulder.

  ‘And?’

  ‘We have a problem.’

  He whispered in Dennis Hathaway’s ear. Hathaway saw his father glance his way.

  ‘OK, let’s dump this scumbag.’

  He stepped behind Cuthbert and released the brake on the wheelch
air. Reilly opened the double doors at the far end of the room and Hathaway rolled Cuthbert over there. Reilly helped him untie Cuthbert and tip the chair.

  Cuthbert, still alive but a dead weight, fell forward but his feet in the tub stalled his progress. Reilly and Dennis Hathaway bent and tilted the tub. Cuthbert’s weight dragged the tub to the edge of the door and he toppled over. He hit the water with a loud splash then slid beneath the surface.

  Dennis Hathaway looked back at his son. Hathaway swallowed.

  ‘That’s that,’ he said.

  His father shook his head.

  ‘Now we’ve got a bigger problem.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your girlfriend.’

  Hathaway frowned until he walked back into the office and saw Elaine shivering in the corner.

  She had come on the pier looking for Hathaway to apologize for the previous evening. She had heard someone singing in the wooden hut beyond the firing range. She had peered through the window. It was misted but she could make out a man tied to a chair. She noticed his feet were in an old washtub. She drew in her breath when she realized the man had been badly beaten. Another man circled him with a piece of wood in his hand. Singing. She gasped when she realized it was John’s father. A man with a flattened nose – Tommy – had come up behind her.

  ‘You’re trespassing, miss.’

  ‘She saw, Johnny boy. She saw.’

  They were all back in the storeroom. Charlie, Reilly, Tommy, Hathaway and his father. The double doors were still open, the sun casting a thick slab of light across the battered wooden floor. Across the tub at Elaine’s feet. Hathaway watched as Tommy poured the grey gloop into the cast-iron tub around Elaine’s bare feet and legs.

  Hathaway looked from his father to his girlfriend. Her eyes were so wide he thought they were going to pop from her head. He moved towards her but Reilly stepped in front of him.

  Hathaway looked back over his shoulder. His father shrugged.

  ‘You can’t help her, John.’

  Hathaway walked over to him.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You know what I’m doing. Once the cement sets we throw her in the sea and we don’t have to worry about her talking.’

  ‘What has she got to talk about?’

  ‘She saw us deal with Cuthbert, John. That’s the long and the short of it.’ He put his hand on Hathaway’s arm. ‘And now it’s time for you to step up.’

  ‘What did she really see?’ Hathaway said.

  His father looked impatient.

  ‘Don’t be thick, boy. She’s told us. She saw how sometimes we have to do business. She now has the power to destroy me. Us. We can’t be having that.’

  ‘Dad, you can’t kill her for that.’

  ‘Can’t I? Why not exactly?’

  ‘Dad, I love her.’

  His father was transformed. His face turned red and a vein stood out on his neck.

  ‘Don’t dad me, you bloody disgrace of a son. You love her. Bring out the frigging violins. Be a man for a change. It needs to be done and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘Dad—’

  ‘What did I just fucking say? You wanted this life. You begged me for it. Or was it just the fast cars and the flash clothes? We had a deal. You signed up for this. You want to call yourself my son?’ On tiptoe, he pushed his face into Hathaway’s. ‘The only way you’re going to be my son is if you kill her.’

  ‘Killing Cuthbert I can understand. He’s like us. But she’s an innocent, she has no part in this. It’s not fair.’

  ‘Fair? Who gives a fuck about fair? If you wanted to keep her innocent you should have kept your prick in your pocket. The minute you nobbed her you compromised her.’ He rubbed his eyes then glared at his son. ‘She saw us. End of story.’

  Elaine was crying, rocking from side to side.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone, I promise—’

  Dennis Hathaway whirled on her.

  ‘Do you think I’m stupid, you little cunt? Of course you’ll promise now. They all promise now. But do you think I believe for one moment that the minute you’re off this pier you won’t blab? A well-brought-up, law-abiding girl like you.’ He looked down at her legs squirming in the tub of concrete. Her skirt had ridden up. She was not wearing knickers. ‘Darling, I’ve seen a bumbo before. Show me a trick with a donkey and I might be impressed. Now keep your fucking feet still!’

  ‘She’s not law-abiding,’ Hathaway said, desperation in his voice.

  His father turned back to him.

  ‘What, because she mouths off a lot? Well, by her lights. Because she goes on anti-war demonstrations and smokes marijuana? Do me a favour.’ He put his hands on Hathaway’s arms. He lowered his voice. ‘Listen. This has to be done. There is no room for manoeuvre. So the question is: who does it? You don’t want her going into the drink alive, do you? So somebody has to snuff her. Now, I think it should be you for all kinds of reasons. One, because you can’t just take from this racket, you have to give as well. And, two, because I thought that your feelings for her would mean you’d do it with a certain . . . a certain . . . what’s the word I’m looking for, Charlie?’

  ‘Compassion?’

  ‘Compassion. That’s it. Nice word. Thanks, Charlie.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  Hathaway laughed harshly, an edge of hysteria in his voice. He looked across at Elaine’s distraught, pleading face.

  ‘You think killing someone you love is compassionate?’

  ‘You always hurt the one you love, Johnny boy – the songs tell us that. Never doubt the truths in popular music.’

  ‘She won’t talk. I give you my word. Put her in my keeping. We’ll go off to India together.’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere. I need you here, even if you are turning into a nancy boy. We made a deal. You’re going to inherit.’

  ‘I don’t want to inherit!’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Hathaway senior moved to straddle a chair over by the table. ‘Don’t you? Then you lied to me. That’s not the impression you’ve been giving me over the past couple of years. Au bloody contraire, if you’ll excuse my French.’

  Elaine was wrenched by sobs, her whole body heaving. The concrete was harder round her legs. Dennis Hathaway caught Hathaway looking.

  ‘She’s got lovely legs, John. You’ve been a lucky boy getting between them. But nothing comes free.’

  Hathaway looked from Elaine to his father and around the room at the impassive faces. Only Charlie looked away.

  ‘I can’t kill her and I can’t let anyone else kill her,’ he said flatly.

  Dennis Hathaway stood.

  ‘I don’t think you want to go there, Johnny. You being a coward is one thing, but that rather limits your options so far as anyone else doing what you can’t do is concerned.’

  ‘John, please . . .’ Elaine said, clear drool running from her nose over her mouth, wet eyes fixed on him. A supplicant.

  ‘Someone wipe her bloody nose.’ Dennis Hathaway looked at Elaine and shook his head. ‘Dignity, darling, is everything.’

  Dennis Hathaway looked back at his son, as Reilly took a blue handkerchief from his pocket and almost tenderly wiped at Elaine’s upper lip and around her mouth. He folded the handkerchief once and dabbed beneath her eyes.

  Hathaway watched, then looked over at Charlie, standing rigid against the wall. Could he enlist Charlie’s help to overpower the others in the room and rescue Elaine? Even as he thought it, he realized what a ridiculous idea it was. He couldn’t see himself fighting his own father and couldn’t see Charlie helping.

  His mind was racing. He did want the life his father was offering. He did want to be a name in Brighton. He did love Elaine. He did want to have sex with every other woman in Brighton. He did want to go to India with her. But the one thing he didn’t want to do was kill this girl he knew so intimately and who knew him so intimately.

  ‘I’m not going to do it.’

  His father leaned on his knees and
looked intently at his son for what seemed an age. Then he stood again.

  ‘Well, some bugger has got to do it. What about you, Charlie? You want the life even more than Johnny here. You’re his mate. Help me out. Help him out. Take his place.’

  Charlie flicked a glance from Hathaway to his father.

  ‘Take his place?’ He looked away. ‘It’s not my kind of thing. Anything else – you know I’m up for anything else—’

  ‘It’s not anyone’s kind of thing,’ Hathaway senior hissed. ‘Unless you’re a fucking psycho, of course, and I don’t employ them. It’s just part of the business. Something that has to be done.’

  Charlie looked at Elaine, slumped in the chair, quiet now. He waved a hand at Dennis Hathaway.

  ‘I can’t, Mr Hathaway. I know her and everything.’

  ‘I know you knew her. You did her.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Course you fucking did,’ he jeered. ‘Last night you went for a quickie behind Johnny’s back. If I were your age I’d be tempted, I tell you. She’s a lovely-looking girl. Get those legs wrapped round you—’

  ‘You can fuck me however you want as much as you want.’

  Elaine was sitting up, glaring at Dennis Hathaway. She jerked her head back towards Tommy.

  ‘I’ll give head to your man here. Your men can have me –’ her bravado ran out and she began to sob again – ‘but please, please, don’t—’

  Dennis Hathaway had a look of disgust on his face.

  ‘Jesus, someone put her out of her misery.’ He looked at her. ‘Darling, I’d love to fuck you but I’m happily married, and whilst I’ll do most things, I draw the line at doing my son’s girlfriend, however much of a disappointment he is to me. I’m sure there must be a rule of etiquette about that.’ He peered into the tub of concrete. ‘Plus, how would I get your legs wide enough apart to stuff it in you, the concrete as set as it is?’

  Hathaway saw a look pass between his father and Tommy. His father shook his head and went over to a table in the corner.

  When Dennis Hathaway walked over to Charlie he had a gun in one hand and a garrotte in the other. He proffered them to Charlie.

  ‘So you’re not up to it? You’re not capable of it?’

  ‘There ain’t nothing I’m not capable of.’