Sorting Out Billy

by Jo Brand

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ wailed Flower.

  The man threw his head back, laughed like a demented clown and headed off into the night.

  Martha was having trouble holding the contents of her own stomach in check as she dabbed ineffectually at her friend’s back with half a crumpled tissue. Flower was filled with a by-now familiar wave of urban hatred.

  ‘I could kill that old bastard,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, but could you?’ said Martha, philosophical for a moment.

  ‘If I had a gun,’ said Flower, ‘I’d soon put him out of his misery.’

  ‘But he was quite happy until you did a Mother Teresa on him,’ said Martha.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Flower.

  ‘Did,’ said Martha.

  ‘Well, I’m just sick of being a perfectly ordinary, reasonably pleasant person and getting shit all the time,’ said Flower. ‘On the street, in the clubs, even at work … by these people who quite honestly don’t deserve to take up the space they do on the planet.’

  ‘I know what you mean, but who are we to decide?’ said Martha. ‘I’d like to shoot that Billy through the block and tackle, but I don’t want to go to prison and ultimately I don’t want to ruin Sarah’s life.’

  ‘You might make her life,’ said Flower, ‘and let’s be honest, our judgement is probably less flawed than your average Middle Eastern dictator.’

  ‘Well,’ said Martha, ‘if you had a chance to disappear Billy off the face of the earth, would you do it?’

  ‘You bet I would, man,’ said Flower, who couldn’t help lapsing into hippy vernacular from time to time, ‘and I might be able to.’

  She told Martha about Dick Knob’s offer and Martha found herself encouraging her to at least go and get a gun, the power of it appealed so much to her, and as they walked along the dirty streets, she visualised several urban scenes in which she would threaten people and make them behave the way she wanted — finishing with a lovely scenario involving the Reverend Brian.

  The night bus approached and the two women climbed on, going to the top deck so Martha could sniff the cigarette smoke of the alcohol-fuelled disobedients on top. This was a foolish mistake, because that night, like most nights, the night bus had become the transport of the Grim Reaper on his day off and was filled with a selection of the most unnerving and unpleasant individuals you could imagine, from barely conscious dribblers to groups of teenage boys with their young offender hats on. Flower and Martha huddled down into their seats, but the incident earlier made Flower somewhat of a nasal target.

  ‘What is that stink?’ enquired a teenager and elicited for some reason hysterical laughter from his mates.

  ‘It’s them two,’ he said, pointing a finger at Flower and Martha. This was a cue for everyone else on the bus to breathe a sigh of relief and look out of the window while Martha and Flower got murdered or whatever.

  Being surrounded by a group of teenagers who have imbibed a selection of more imaginative substances than alcohol and drugs was not an ideal finish to the night.

  These days, thought Martha, the contents of a chemistry lab were available to any kid from his friendly streetcorner dealer for the price of a packet of fags, so God knew what biochemical imbalances were propelling their antisocial behaviour tonight.

  One aspect of travelling in a big city at night is the reassuring knowledge that, should a situation get out of hand, no one will lift a finger to help. Numerous excuses flit through people’s heads, all of them centring on the fact that risking injury for another human being you haven’t even met just isn’t worth it.

  Knowing this made Flower feel very vulnerable indeed, and because of Martha’s pregnant state she knew she would be called upon to defend her. She also knew that neither of them was attractive enough to warrant a front-page report in the paper if they were injured or killed, because it was required that you looked vaguely like a model if you got murdered. It was hard luck but, as a nation, nobody mourns the passing of the less attractive citizen unless they are important in some way. Flower decided to take responsibility and try the pacifist approach.

  ‘Look, it’s me who smells,’ she explained apologetically like a Sunday-school teacher. ‘A man was sick on me, right?’

  One would have thought this was the funniest thing the gang had ever heard, as they indulged in hugely exaggerated laughing, rolling in the aisle, poking each other and generally swaggering around intimidating others with their laughter. The leader of the gang, however, sat in the middle of them, his pasty, impassive face belying an IQ of 140 and a wish to study medicine. Held back from achieving his goal by his unpleasant personality and parents who thought being a doctor was ‘poofy’, he made up his mind. ‘Well, I don’t like the smell. Let’s get her off the fucking bus.’

  The laughing stopped as it dawned on the fringe members of the gang, who were no more than overgrown ten year olds, what they were being asked to do. They knew disobeying this pizza base on legs would result in some sort of violence towards them and they would rather risk injuring someone by throwing them down some bus stairs than incurring his wrath. A few of them began to edge like cringing dogs towards Flower. Flower panicked and said things like, ‘It’s all right, I’ll just go,’ but she realised that they intended to have some sport with her whatever she said or did.

  Martha was also aware that things were looking dodgy and tried to out-bravado the weaker teenagers.

  ‘Come on, you little shits,’ she said, trying to look relaxed. ‘Pick on someone your own size i.e. someone smaller than me,’ realising too late that the ‘i.e.’ was a bad idea and had only confused them.

  The fringe members looked hesitantly at their leader, whose glare was unflinching, and realised they would have to do his bidding.

  Martha’s hand tightened round a Swiss army knife she kept in her handbag, fumbling for the blade and unfortunately coaxing out the bit that removed stones from horses’ hooves. I’m sure that’ll come in handy with one of these donkeys, she thought grimly to herself. She felt the Lump jump and twist inside her. Someone’s up for a fight, she noted.

  As the gang advanced, Flower started doing a sort of low whimpering that couldn’t be heard by anyone except Martha.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Martha. ‘We’ll be OK. Something’ll turn up.’

  Everyone else on the bus was listening to every word and holding their breath, and a few communicated desperately with their eyes to their partners. A middle-aged couple on holiday from America knew full well the consequences of intervening, having tried it in New York and been beaten for their troubles; a younger couple from South London who had just got engaged simultaneously decided they didn’t want to be stabbed on a bus before their wedding for the sake of a hippy covered in sick. Four drunk students knew enough of London Transport to keep their lips buttoned, and a slightly older but smaller gang of teenagers knew they were outnumbered and stared resolutely ahead.

  That left, sitting quietly at the front of the bus waiting patiently for his moment and equipped to deal with this situation physically and mentally, a certain Mr Michael Randall who spent many a Friday night sitting expectantly on the night bus waiting for things to erupt. Up to this point they never had and it was ironic, he thought to himself, that he was being called up as a gallant knight for these two unfortunate-looking girls who had recently joined his self-defence class. He had not acknowledged himself to them, in fact he never did to anyone when he was on one of his jaunts, just in case he had to hit them or humiliate himself in front of them.

  It would be reassuring to report that Michael Randall rose magnificently from his seat and stood at the top of the bus, eyes blazing and weapons poised, but he was too weaselly for that. He just sort of slimed to his feet and with the anger of ten men launched himself screaming towards the fracas, something he had read was essential to terrify the enemy, from the rebel yell of the Confederates in the American Civil War to the blood-freezing roar of the raggle-taggle Scots at Culloden.

  Th
e teenagers were truly shocked that what appeared to be a skinny, human version of Golem had decided to take them on and felt confident that Ant, the one with the biggest punch, could take him out. Before Ant could manage this though, Michael Randall had all but blinded him with two fingers poked without mercy into his eyes. Ant fell to the ground screaming and holding his face.

  Drama queen, thought Martha.

  Spurred on by this vicious assault on their manhood by a stoat in a car coat, Ant’s mates Jez and Luca took their chances. Jez took a swing at Michael Randall, missed and received a size eight in the bollocks, perfectly placed with a terrible force. He too hit the deck screaming. Luca pulled out a knife and held it gleaming for a split second before Michael Randall took it from him in one deft move and brought it down into his thigh. This made Martha wince at the memory of trying to open a toffee tin on the bus as a schoolgirl with her compasses and stabbing herself in the leg.

  The gang thought that safety in numbers was the only answer now and Dom, Lob and Taz, who sounded like three forwards for Charlton Athletic, broadsided Michael Randall in an attempt to get him on the floor and kick the crap out of him. But Michael Randall had lived this scenario too many times in his head to get it wrong at this point and, bringing out a rounders bat (‘more easily concealed, thicker and more convenient to handle’), he played their heads like a xylophone until they retreated down the steps at the end of the bus wondering why they felt like cuddling their mums, who had given them nothing but grief since they were little kids.

  This left the gang leader Moz alone and seething as his lieutenants fell around him and he sat trying to sneer as Michael approached, confident even despite the carnage, that he could handle whatever this little man chose to throw at him.

  But Michael Randall had something special for Moz. Within seconds he had whipped out what looked like a helmet, around which he had attached a band of metal which could be tightened. Before he knew what had happened, Moz sat with a kitchen colander on his head as Michel deftly tightened it and threw the Allen key out of the window It was snug enough to hurt a lot but not to do any damage, and as he strolled back down the bus and winked at Martha and Flower, the whole bus erupted into laughter as a pained-looking Moz made his way down the stairs and out onto the street.

  Moz got to know the meaning of heckling on the long walk home that night as, ‘Hang on, I’ll bring me spuds out, ‘and ‘Careful your brain doesn’t leak out,’ assaulted his ears along with some more pithy efforts.

  As night rolled on, Michael Randall lay in bed grinning silently next to his wife and Martha and Flower changed their minds about not going back to his class.

  Martha and Flower were rather sobered by their night-bus experience and decided to go to Martha’s for a drink and to get some perspective back into their jaded lives.

  Flower knew that Charlie would be waiting at home to see how her gig had gone. He had been only slightly suspicious when she discovered a last-minute booking on a Friday girls’ night and he had offered to go with her, but she was so near to the place and he was so far, he was persuaded to stay at home.

  Charlie sounded relieved when he heard Martha had turned up at the show and Flower had kept him apprised of their progress across London on the mobile, leaving out the less savoury details..

  Of course when they got back to Martha’s, Flower couldn’t wait to wash the contents of the vagrant’s stomach off her back and got into Martha’s shower as if it was hippy heaven while Martha did her customary hunt for booze which always turned up something, on this occasion half a bottle of Greek brandy which looked quite palatable but tasted like liquidised tyres. The two didn’t notice the ersatz taste however as they mulled over the night’s events and the conversation turned to Billy again.

  ‘Just say,’ said Martha, ‘that we shot him.’ She realised she was becoming keener on the idea. ‘I mean, nobody would know it was us. For a start, nobody except us knows about the violence.’

  ‘Sarah would know it was us,’ said Flower.

  ‘But surely she’d realise we were doing her a favour in the long run.’

  ‘Oh I doubt it,’ said Flower. ‘Besides, we couldn’t keep it a secret for ever — what we had done would somehow spill out in the pub. We’d be pissed one night and tell Doreen and she’d bloody tell everyone.’

  ‘What, Barmaid Ceefax? No never,’ said Martha.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Flower, pouring herself another brandy, ‘why kill Billy? He’s not that bad.’

  ‘I know,’ said Martha, ‘but wait till Sarah commits to him and then she’s got years of shit up ahead, which we could save her from now’

  ‘But we haven’t tried anything on our list yet, except me talking to him,’ said Flower.

  ‘I’m just impatient to take the bastard out,’ said Martha and they both laughed.

  ‘Where’s your list?’ said Flower. ‘What else have we got?’ Surprisingly, given all the slightly unpleasant debris that was still lying in Martha’s flat even after an attempt at cleaning, she managed to produce an intact list almost immediately. Martha surveyed it. ‘We’ve got the sublime and the ridiculous here,’ she said, ‘from talking to him to trying to split them up, to trying to turn Sarah into a lesbian, to a contract killing, to tampering with the brakes on his car.’

  ‘Oh yeah — and you’d know how to do the brakes on his car, would you?’ said Flower.

  ‘I would, actually,’ said Martha, ‘seeing as when I lived in the village I knocked around with a mechanic for quite a while.’

  ‘Did you ever find out anything useful?’ said Flower.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Oh, you know, how to change a wheel, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh Christ no, nothing that dull,’ said Martha.

  ‘So let’s do his brakes,’ Flower heard herself say and then laughed at how odd it sounded. Martha began to laugh too and they were nearly onto the guffawing stage when the phone rang. Considering it was one in the morning, both girls felt their hearts leap and each separately wondered whether Billy could have heard them and was phoning to threaten them.

  It was Charlie.

  ‘It’s only Charlie,’ said Flower with her hand over the receiver because she knew he would be offended by the ‘only’, and in their relief, they began to laugh.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Charlie irritatedly, assuming he was being discussed and laughed at.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Flower, always an unsatisfactory reply.

  ‘When are you coming home?’ said Charlie.

  Flower felt like saying, ‘When you change the fucking record,’ but in fact said, ‘Not long now.

  ‘Look, I’ll come and get you,’ said Charlie. ‘Be there in twenty-five.’ As usual Flower had no time to agree to this.

  Martha, serious for a moment, said, ‘Look — if Billy doesn’t settle down with Sarah and increase his battering in direct proportion to how long they are together, he’ll just do it to someone else.’

  ‘I know,’ said Flower, ‘but it’s not our job. One in four women suffer domestic violence, but we can’t kill a quarter of the blokes in the country.’

  ‘It is our job,’ said Martha.

  ‘Why?’ said Flower.

  ‘Because we’re pissed as farts,’ Martha replied, starting to roar with laughter again and wetting herself slightly in the process, because of the pressure of Lump. She didn’t tell Flower. Oh God, thought Martha, I am pissed and I’m about to have a baby. I must be more sensible. And this made her laugh even more. She bent double and headed for the toilet, trying to stop any more urine leaking out. On the way back, she noticed that Flower had taken up Martha’s list and was adding some things. Rudely, she snatched it from her. ‘Therapy?’ she read dismissively. ‘Waste of bloody money and effort.’

  ‘I’m not getting into the therapy argument again with you,’ said Flower.

  ‘And what’s this,’ said Martha. ‘Anger fucking management?’

  ‘You need fucking swearing managemen
t,’ said Flower.

  ‘Oh, come on though,’ said Martha. ‘A load of violent wankers sitting round in a circle saying, “And then I hit her with a hammer”, what bloody good is that going to do?’

  ‘Look, I didn’t say anything before, but Charlie went to one to see what it was like,’ said Flower.

  Martha began to laugh again.

  ‘Oi!’ said Flower. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Did he get battered?’ Martha chuckled.

  ‘How did you know?’ said Flower.

  ‘It was just so inevitable,’ said Martha and carried on laughing as the door-knocker sounded.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s only Charlie,’ they said together. But it wasn’t Charlie, it was Pat, Martha’s mum, having risked a second expedition into the heart of darkness.

  ‘Mum?’ Martha was pissed and pissed off and hadn’t realised yet that so was Pat.

  ‘I’ve been shopping in town and then to a pub,’ said Pat.

  In their drunken state this struck Martha and Flower as extremely funny and even at the age of thirty-eight and thirty-five they tried to suppress childish explosions of laughter.

  ‘Been to a pub? But you’ve never been to a pub with Dad, let alone on your own, and what are you doing here at this time of night?’ Martha realised some role reversal had taken place.

  ‘I missed the train,’ said Pat.

  ‘Have you phoned Dad?’

  ‘I’ve texted him,’ said Pat. ‘Some boy in the pub showed me.’

  ‘You what?’ Martha’s mother seemed to have been replaced by a socially disinhibited teenager. ‘Has Dad got a mobile?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Pat, ‘he’s got a really wicked Nokia.’

  Martha felt queasy.

  Martha wondered if Pat had had a stroke and decided to investigate further in the morning. ‘Keep an eye,’ she whispered to Flower as she went to check that her bedroom wasn’t too revolting to put her mother in.

  ‘But I’ll have a drink with you two,’ protested her mother as Martha tried to steer her by the elbow into her room as though she was a ninety-year-old occupant of an old people’s home.